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Journal article
Spontaneous gyrotropic electronic order in a transition-metal dichalcogenide
Nature (London), v 578(7796), pp 545-549
01 Feb 2020
PMID: 32103195
Abstract
Chirality is ubiquitous in nature, and populations of opposite chiralities are surprisingly asymmetric at fundamental levels(1,2). Examples range from parity violation in the subatomic weak force to homochirality in biomolecules. The ability to achieve chirality-selective synthesis (chiral induction) is of great importance in stereochemistry, molecular biology and pharmacology(2). In condensed matter physics, a crystalline electronic system is geometrically chiral when it lacks mirror planes, space-inversion centres or rotoinversion axes(1). Typically, geometrical chirality is predefined by the chiral lattice structure of a material, which is fixed on formation of the crystal. By contrast, in materials with gyrotropic order(3-6), electrons spontaneously organize themselves to exhibit macroscopic chirality in an originally achiral lattice. Although such order-which has been proposed as the quantum analogue of cholesteric liquid crystals-has attracted considerable interest(3-15), no clear observation or manipulation of gyrotropic order has been achieved so far. Here we report the realization of optical chiral induction and the observation of a gyrotropically ordered phase in the transition-metal dichalcogenide semimetal 1T-TiSe2. We show that shining mid-infrared circularly polarized light on 1T-TiSe2 while cooling it below the critical temperature leads to the preferential formation of one chiral domain. The chirality of this state is confirmed by the measurement of an out-of-plane circular photogalvanic current, the direction of which depends on the optical induction. Although the role of domain walls requires further investigation with local probes, the methodology demonstrated here can be applied to realize and control chiral electronic phases in other quantum materials(4,16).
Optical chiral induction and spontaneous gyrotropic electronic order are realized in the transition-metal chalcogenide 1T-TiSe2 by using illumination with mid-infrared circularly polarized light and simultaneous cooling below the critical temperature.
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Details
- Title
- Spontaneous gyrotropic electronic order in a transition-metal dichalcogenide
- Creators
- Su-Yang Xu - Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyQiong Ma - Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyYang Gao - Carnegie Mellon UniversityAnshul Kogar - Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyAlfred Zong - Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyAndres M. Mier Valdivia - MIT, Dept Phys, Cambridge, MA 02139 USAThao H. Dinh - Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyShin-Ming Huang - National Sun Yat-sen UniversityBahadur Singh - Northeastern UniversityChuang-Han Hsu - National University of SingaporeTay-Rong Chang - National Cheng Kung UniversityJacob P. C. Ruff - Cornell Univ, CHESS, Ithaca, NY USAKenji Watanabe - National Institute for Materials ScienceTakashi Taniguchi - National Institute for Materials ScienceHsin Lin - Institute of Physics, Academia SinicaGoran Karapetrov - Drexel UniversityDi Xiao - Carnegie Mellon UniversityPablo Jarillo-Herrero - Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyNuh Gedik - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Publication Details
- Nature (London), v 578(7796), pp 545-549
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Number of pages
- 9
- Grant note
- DMR-0819762 / National Science Foundation (NSF); National Research Foundation of Korea National Center for Theoretical Sciences, Taiwan JPMJCR15F3 / CREST; Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) DE-AC02-07CH11358 / US Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, through the Ames Laboratory; United States Department of Energy (DOE) JST; Japan Science & Technology Agency (JST) AS-iMATE-107-11 / Academia Sinica, Taiwan; Academia Sinica - Taiwan DMR-1332208; DMR-1829070 / NSF; National Science Foundation (NSF) Young Scholar Fellowship Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) in Taiwan US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences; United States Department of Energy (DOE) JP18K19136 / JSPS KAKENHI; Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT); Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) Higher Education Sprout Project, Ministry of Education from the Headquarters of University Advancement at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) FA9550-16-1-0382 / AFOSR; United States Department of Defense; Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) DE-SC0012509 / Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division; United States Department of Energy (DOE) MOST108-2636-M-006-002 / MOST grant for the Columbus Program GBMF 4541 / Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's EPiQS Initiative 105-2112-M-110-014-MY3 / Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) in Taiwan; Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan MOST107-2627-E-006-001 / MOST, Taiwan; Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Physics
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000516571100015
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85080076431
- Other Identifier
- 991019169701004721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Physics, Multidisciplinary