Discovery of a Stripe Phase in an Elemental Solid
Translational symmetry breaking is foundational to condensed matter physics because it is associated with crystal formation. At much lower energy scales, the breaking of crystalline translational symmetry can be driven by electronic, rather than ionic, degrees of freedom and may give rise to stripe order, a unidirectional ordered state. Such symmetry breaking has been seen in two-dimensional and strongly correlated systems. Here, for the first time, we report the observation of stripe order in an elemental solid, tellurium. Through topographic and spectroscopic imaging, we discover a commensurate 4 × 1 stripe phase. Surprisingly, this exotic order is so robust that it survives close to room temperature. Notably, our diffraction experiments confirm the bulk nature of the stripe order, showing the minuteness of potential lattice distortion associated with the order. Our discovery of the stripe order in tellurium opens new windows to understanding the spontaneous symmetry breaking in elemental solids.
Authors
- Raúl Acevedo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3668-7089)
- Chia-Hsiu Hsu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9130-2626)
- Song-Bo Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4270-4597)
- Guangming Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5852-1341)
- Tyler A. Cochran (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1745-8467)
- M. Zahid Hasan
- Haozhe Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4820-833X)
- Xiàn Yáng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5019-374X)
- Yang Fu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7093-7136)
- Jia‐Xin Yin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2661-4206)
- Hechang Lei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0850-8514)
- Xiaoxiong Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2187-0035)
- Weiwei Xie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5500-8195)
- Stepan S. Tsirkin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5064-0485)
- Sen Shao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5530-2493)
- Yu-Xiao Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7958-3100)
- Yaroslav A. Gerasimenko (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5337-284X)
- C. S. Nelson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0196-0340)
- Shao-Gang Xu
- Guoqing Chang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1180-3127)
- Hu Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2254-5840)
- Brian Casas
- Luis Balicas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5209-0293)
- Titus Neupert (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0604-041X)
- Md Shafayat Hossain (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3744-5877)
- Maksim Litskevich (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3049-6521)
- Nan Yao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4081-1495)
- Jose L. Gonzalez Jimenez
- Qi Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4201-7196)
- Pengcheng Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2018-5594)
- Hu Miao
- Zi-Jia Cheng
- Kouta Dagnino
Institutions
- Florida State University (US)
- Ikerbasque (ES)
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US)
- University of the Basque Country (ES)
- Nanyang Technological University (SG)
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (US)
- Princeton University (US)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Princeton Public Schools (US)
- Southern University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (US)
- FZU ‒ Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (CZ)
- Yukhnovskii Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (UA)
- Material Physics Center (ES)
- National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (US)
- National Synchrotron Light Source II
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
- University of Regensburg (DE)
- Renmin University of China (CN)
- Michigan State University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2025-06-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c01695
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.26
Funders
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation
- Agencia Estatal de Investigación
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions