Flat bands in the CoSn-type compounds
William R. Meier, Mao‐Hua Du, Satoshi Okamoto, Narayan Mohanta, Andrew F. May, Michael A. McGuire, Craig A. Bridges, German D. Samolyuk, B. C. Sales
Abstract
Quantum interference on the kagome lattice generates electronic bands with narrow bandwidth, called flat bands. Crystal structures incorporating this lattice can host strong electron correlations with nonstandard ingredients, but only if these bands lie at the Fermi level. In the six compounds with the CoSn structure type (FeGe, FeSn, CoSn, NiIn, RhPb, and PtTl) the transition metals form a kagome lattice. The two iron variants are robust antiferromagnets so we focus on the latter four and investigate their thermodynamic and transport properties. We consider these results and calculated band structures to locate and characterize the flat bands in these materials. We propose that CoSn and RhPb deserve the community's attention for exploring flat-band physics.