Electrons whizzing through the kagome metal Fe3Sn2 are influenced by the proximity of a flat band . This causes the electronic charge to be fractionalized, or split . Researchers have now observed this effect spectroscopically. Credit: Paul Scherrer Institute / Sandy Ekahana
The fact that charge can be fractionalised is not new: it has been observed experimentally since the late 1980s with the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect. In this, the conductance of a system in which electrons are confined to a two-dimensional plane is observed to be quantized in fractional – rather than integer – units of charge.
To observe the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect, strong magnetic fields and very low temperatures are applied, which suppress the kinetic energy of electrons and promote strong interactions and collective behavior. On examining these closely, the researchers detected strange features in the electronic band structure that were not fully explained by theory. The laser ARPES measurements revealed a dispersive band, which did not match with density functional theory calculations – one of the most established methods to study electron interactions and behaviors in materials. “It quite often happens that DFT doesn’t quite match. But from an experimental point of view alone, this band was extremely peculiar.
In this way, the measurements by Ekahana and colleagues provide direct spectroscopic observation of charge fractionalization.
Source: Tech Daily Report (techdailyreport.net)
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