Discovery of Charge Order in the Transition Metal Dichalcogenide <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>Fe</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mi>x</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mrow><mml:mi>NbS</mml:mi></mml:mrow><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:msub></mml:mrow></mml:mrow></mml:math>
Shan Wu, Rourav Basak, W. Li, Jong‐Woo Kim, Philip J. Ryan, Dong-Hui Lu, Makoto Hashimoto, C. S. Nelson, Raúl Acevedo, Shannon C. Haley, James G. Analytis, Yu He, Alex Frañó, R. J. Birgeneau
Abstract
The Fe intercalated transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD), Fe_{1/3}NbS_{2}, exhibits remarkable resistance switching properties and highly tunable spin ordering phases due to magnetic defects. We conduct synchrotron x-ray scattering measurements on both underintercalated (x=0.32) and overintercalated (x=0.35) samples. We discover a new charge order phase in the overintercalated sample, where the excess Fe atoms lead to a zigzag antiferromagnetic order. The agreement between the charge and magnetic ordering temperatures, as well as their intensity relationship, suggests a strong magnetoelastic coupling as the mechanism for the charge ordering. Our results reveal the first example of a charge order phase among the intercalated TMD family and demonstrate the ability to stabilize charge modulation by introducing electronic correlations, where the charge order is absent in bulk 2H-NbS_{2} compared to other pristine TMDs.