Research Projects

Kagome lattice materials are a family of compounds where one can have two-dimensional (2D) array of corner-sharing triangles. Due to the coexistence of the non-trivial topological states and the flat band near the Fermi energy, the kagome lattice systems became one of the most studied materials in the last decades. Here the flat bands induce large density of states of electrons and results strongly correlated quantum effects, like the quantum spin liquid state etc. On the other hand, the magnetic exchange interaction and spin-orbit coupling stages the prospect of observing novel topological phases like 2-D Chern insulator phase with edge states within the 2-D kagome lattice layers. Thus in the correlated magnetic kagome metals, the existence of both of spin and charge degrees of freedom, enhances the tunability of the physical properties. Recently many exotic quantum phases like unconventional superconductivity, magnetic as-well-as charge bond order, even charge density wave state etc. has been theoretically predicted in doped kagome lattice materials. Even, a partially filled flat band can result the fractional quantum Hall state in kagome lattice. Besides, the kagome lattice is dominated by the 3d electrons of transition metals, providing ideal platform to investigate the interplay of exchange interaction with SOC induced topology and correlation effect from the flat bands. In this project, we propose to grow single crystals and perform detailed physical property characterizations of various kagome lattice materials. We shall start the investigation with the family of materials, like: TaXb kagome series (T = 3d metals like Co, Fe, Mn; X = Sn, Ge; and a:b = 1:1, 3:1 and 3:2), AV₃Sb₅ [A: K, Rb, Cs].