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Strange metal from a frustration-driven charge order instability

Nature Materials volume 18, pages 229–233 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Interparticle interactions are self-conflicting rather than cooperative on particular lattices. When such geometrical frustration occurs, charge ordering (CO) can be destabilized into non-trivial charge states such as the recently observed charge glass (CG). A more extreme case is the frustration-induced quantum melting of the CO that has been theoretically proposed. Here, we report d.c. charge transport and noise spectroscopy measurements for a triangular-lattice organic conductor situated close to the CO or CG. Our experiments demonstrate that these materials can host a strange metal with unusual charge dynamics, which we attribute to frustration-induced fluctuations of the CO or CG. Our results also show that the anomalous charge fluctuations can freeze into an insulating state when uniaxial stress is applied, which reduces the geometrical frustration. The present observations suggest the existence of the frustration-induced quantum melting of charges analogous to spin liquids.

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Fig. 1: Crystal structure of θ-(BEDT-TTF)2I3.
Fig. 2: Temperature dependence of in-plane resistivity for the series of materials with different strengths of charge frustration.
Fig. 3: Resistance noise profiles for θ-I3 and θ-CsZn.
Fig. 4: Nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate, 1/T1.
Fig. 5: Temperature dependence of in-plane resistivity of θ-(BEDT-TTF)2I3 before and after applying the c-axis strain by a uniaxial pressure of 2 kbar.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors on request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI under grant no. 25220709 and Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (nos 15H00988, 16K05744, 17K05532, 24340074, 16H04010 and 18H05225) from the JSPS, Japan, and the Canon Foundation. T.S. was supported as a JSPS Research Fellow (no. 14J07870).

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  1. T. Sato

    Present address: RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science, Wako, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    T. Sato, K. Kitai, K. Miyagawa & K. Kanoda

  2. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science, Noda, Japan

    M. Tamura

  3. Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan

    A. Ueda & H. Mori

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Contributions

T.S. performed the d.c. transport measurements. T.S. and K. Kitai performed the noise measurements. T.S. and K.M performed 1H NMR measurements. K.M., M.T., A.U. and H.M. grew the single crystals used for the study. K. Kanoda planned the project. T.S. and K. Kanoda wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to T. Sato or K. Kanoda.

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Supplementary Figures 1–10, Supplementary References 1–7

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Sato, T., Kitai, K., Miyagawa, K. et al. Strange metal from a frustration-driven charge order instability. Nature Mater 18, 229–233 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0284-9

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