Abstract
A kagome lattice (KL) is a two-dimensional atomic network comprising hexagons interspersed with triangles, which provides a fascinating platform for studying competing quantum ground states. The KL contains three atoms in a unit cell, and their degrees of freedom combine to yield Dirac bands and a flat band. Despite many studies to understand the flat band in KL, exploring the pseudospin of Dirac bands in KL has been scarce. In this paper, we suggest pseudospin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy that is analogous to spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy. Using a pseudospin-polarized tip, we possibly observed the pseudospin texture of kagome metal FeSn in real space. Based on a simple tight-binding calculation, we further simulated the pseudospin texture of KL, confirming the geometric origin of pseudospin. This work potentially deepens our understanding of the lattice symmetry-preserving tunneling process in Dirac materials.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 235 |
| Journal | Communications Physics |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (No. 2020R1A2C2102838), the CoE program (19-CoE-NT-01) at DGIST and the DGIST institution specific program (21-BRP-07). The authors thank the Center for Core Research Facilities (CCRF) at DGIST for providing technical support for the material analyses. This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (No. 2020R1A2C2102838), the CoE program (19-CoE-NT-01) at DGIST and the DGIST institution specific program (21-BRP-07). The authors thank the Center for Core Research Facilities (CCRF) at DGIST for providing technical support for the material analyses.