Spontaneous Breaking of Isotropy Observed in the Electronic Transport of Rare-Earth Tritellurides

A.A. Sinchenko (1) , P.D. Grigoriev (2) , Pascal Lejay (3) , Pierre Monceau (4)

1 Moscow Engineering-Physics Institute
2 L.D. Institut forTheoretical Physics
3 NEEL - C2MA - Croissance Cristalline et MicroAnalyse
4 NEEL - MagSup - Magnétisme et Supraconductivité

We show that the isotropic conductivity in the normal state of rare-earth tritelluride RTe3 compounds is broken by the occurrence of theunidirectional charge density wave (CDW) in the (a, c) plane below the Peierls transition temperature. In contrast with quasi-one-dimensional systems, the resistivity anomaly associated with the CDW transition is strong in the direction perpendicular to the CDW wave vector Q (a axis) and very weak in the CDW wave vector Q direction (c axis). We qualitatively explain this result by calculating the electrical conductivity for the electron dispersion with momentum-dependent CDW gap as determined by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Similar measurements of in-plane conductivity may uncover the gap anisotropy in other compounds for which angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy is not available.

Domaines: Electrons fortement corrélés [cond-mat.str-el]

A.A. Sinchenko, P.D. Grigoriev, Pascal Lejay, Pierre Monceau. Spontaneous Breaking of Isotropy Observed in the Electronic Transport of Rare-Earth Tritellurides. Physical Review Letters, 2014, 112 (3), pp.036601. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.036601⟩. ⟨hal-00966279⟩