Abstract
AbstractThe self-organization of strongly interacting electrons into superlattice structures underlies the properties of many quantum materials. How these electrons arrange within the superlattice dictates what symmetries are broken and what ground states are stabilized. Here we show that cryogenic scanning transmission electron microscopy (cryo-STEM) enables direct mapping of local symmetries and order at the intra-unit-cell level in the model charge-ordered system Nd1/2Sr1/2MnO3. In addition to imaging the prototypical site-centered charge order, we discover the nanoscale coexistence of an exotic intermediate state which mixes site and bond order and breaks inversion symmetry. We further show that nonlinear coupling of distinct lattice modes controls the selection between competing ground states. The results demonstrate the importance of lattice coupling for understanding and manipulating the character of electronic self-organization and that cryo-STEM can reveal local order in strongly correlated systems at the atomic scale.
Funder
U.S. Department of Defense
National Science Foundation
Cornell University
UC | University of California Merced
U.S. Department of Energy
Kavli Institute at Cornell
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
General Physics and Astronomy,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Chemistry
Cited by
14 articles.
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