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Chiral Charge-Density Waves

J. Ishioka, Y. H. Liu, K. Shimatake, T. Kurosawa, K. Ichimura, Y. Toda, M. Oda, and S. Tanda
Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 176401 – Published 18 October 2010
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Abstract

We discovered the chirality of charge-density waves (CDW) in 1TTiSe2 by using STM and time-domain optical polarimetry. We found that the CDW intensity becomes Ia1Ia2Ia3=10.7±0.10.5±0.1, where Iai (i=1,2,3) is the amplitude of the tunneling current contributed by the CDWs. There were two states, in which the three intensity peaks of the CDW decrease clockwise and anticlockwise. The chirality in CDW results in the threefold symmetry breaking. Macroscopically, twofold symmetry was indeed observed in optical measurement. We propose the new generalized CDW chirality HCDWq1·(q2×q3), where qi are the CDW q vectors, which is independent of the symmetry of components. The nonzero HCDW—the triple-q vectors do not exist in an identical plane in the reciprocal space—should induce a real-space chirality in CDW system.

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  • Received 10 January 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.176401

© 2010 The American Physical Society

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Chiral symmetry breaking and charge order

Published 18 October 2010

When electronic instabilities give rise to three coexisting density waves, interference between them may lock into a state with helicity.

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Authors & Affiliations

J. Ishioka1, Y. H. Liu2, K. Shimatake1, T. Kurosawa2, K. Ichimura1,3, Y. Toda1,3, M. Oda2,3, and S. Tanda1,3,*

  • 1Department of Applied Physics, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-8628, Japan
  • 2Department of Physics, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan
  • 3Center of Education and Research for Topological Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-8628, Japan

  • *Corresponding author. tanda@eng.hokudai.ac.jp

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Issue

Vol. 105, Iss. 17 — 22 October 2010

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