Artificial heavy fermions in a van der Waals heterostructure

A study demonstrates the synthesis and characterization of a two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructure hosting artificial heavy fermions, providing a tunable platform for investigations of heavy-fermion physics. Heavy-fermion systems represent one of the paradigmatic strongly correlated states of matter(1-5). They have been used as a platform for investigating exotic behaviour ranging from quantum criticality and non-Fermi liquid behaviour to unconventional topological superconductivity(4-12). The heavy-fermion phenomenon arises from the exchange interaction between localized magnetic moments and conduction electrons leading to Kondo lattice physics, and represents one of the long-standing open problems in quantum materials(3). In a Kondo lattice, the exchange interaction gives rise to a band with heavy effective mass. This intriguing phenomenology has so far been realized only in compounds containing rare-earth elements with 4f or 5f electrons(1,4,13,14). Here we realize a designer van der Waals heterostructure where artificial heavy fermions emerge from the Kondo coupling between a lattice of localized magnetic moments and itinerant electrons in a 1T/1H-TaS2 heterostructure. We study the heterostructure using scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy and show that depending on the stacking order of the monolayers, we can reveal either the localized magnetic moments and the associated Kondo effect, or the conduction electrons with a heavy-fermion hybridization gap. Our experiments realize an ultimately tunable platform for future experiments probing enhanced many-body correlations, dimensional tuning of quantum criticality and unconventional superconductivity in two-dimensional artificial heavy-fermion systems(15-17).

Automated summary

The study demonstrates the synthesis and characterization of a two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructure hosting artificial heavy fermions, providing a tunable platform for investigations of heavy-fermion physics. Using scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy, the researchers show that depending on the stacking order of the monolayers, either localized magnetic moments and the associated Kondo effect, or conduction electrons with a heavy-fermion hybridization gap can be revealed. The experiments realize an ultimately tunable platform for future experiments probing enhanced many-body correlations, dimensional tuning of quantum criticality and unconventional superconductivity in two-dimensional artificial heavy-fermion systems.