Unconventional specular optical rotation in the charge ordered state of Kagome metal CsV3Sb5

Camron Farhang, Jingyuan Wang, Brenden R. Ortiz, Stephen D. Wilson, Jing Xia

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Kagome metals AV3Sb5 (A = K, Cs, Rb) provide a rich platform for intertwined orders, where evidence for time-reversal symmetry breaking, likely due to the long-sought loop currents, has emerged in STM and muon spin relaxation experiments. An isotropic component in the spontaneous optical rotation has also been reported and was interpreted as the magneto-optic Kerr effect. Intriguingly, the observed rotations differ by five orders of magnitude between different wavelengths and samples, suggesting more intricate physics. Here we report optical rotation and polar Kerr measurements in CsV3Sb5 crystals at the same wavelength. We observe large isotropic components of 1 milliradian in the optical rotation that do not respond to applied magnetic fields, while the spontaneous Kerr signal is less than 20 nanoradians. Our results prove unambiguously that the reported isotropic rotation is not from time-reversal symmetry breaking but represents the long-sought specular optical rotation and indicates a new intertwined order.

Original languageEnglish
Article number5326
JournalNature Communications
Volume14
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2023
Externally publishedYes

Funding

We acknowledge useful discussions with A. Kapitulnik. This project was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems (EPiQS) Initiative Grant GBMF10276 (J.X.). S.D.W. and B.R.O. acknowledge support via the UC Santa Barbara NSF Quantum Foundry funded via the Q-AMASE-i program under award DMR-1906325 (S.D.W.).

FundersFunder number
UC Santa Barbara NSFDMR-1906325
Gordon and Betty Moore FoundationGBMF10276

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