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Multipole polaron roams the devil’s staircase

Nature Materials volume 21, pages 384–385 (2022)Cite this article

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Mobile electrons dressed with the crystal electric field of localized f orbitals form a new type of quasiparticle in a rare-earth material with a devil’s staircase magnetic structure.

Electron–boson interaction (EBI) has an important role in the properties of materials. Electron–phonon interaction in good metals can give rise to superconductivity1, where electrons flow without dissipation below a critical temperature. In ionic crystals such as organic semiconductors, the coupling of low-energy electrons (or holes) with the atomic vibrations can drive the formation of polarons2 — an electron dressed with a phonon cloud, with lower mobility and heavy effective mass. The same notion can be applied to strongly correlated electron systems. Electron–spin fluctuation coupling3 drives unconventional superconductivity in high-temperature cuprates, iron-based superconductors and heavy-fermion systems. Magnetic polarons can form around charged dopants in an otherwise antiferromagnetic background of a Mott insulator4, while an electron–polaron is also possible, via electron–plasmon coupling, when a Kondo hole is introduced in a heavy-fermion material, similar to a plasmaron in doped graphene5.

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Fig. 1: Multipole polaron.

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  1. Theoretical Division and Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA

    Jian-Xin Zhu

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  1. Jian-Xin Zhu
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Correspondence to Jian-Xin Zhu.

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Zhu, JX. Multipole polaron roams the devil’s staircase. Nat. Mater. 21, 384–385 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01218-0

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