Abstract
Atomic manipulation techniques have provided a bottom-up approach to investigating the unconventional properties and complex phases of strongly correlated electron materials. By engineering artificial systems containing tens to thousands of atoms with tailored electronic or magnetic properties, it has become possible to explore how quantum many-body effects emerge as the size of a system is increased from the nanoscale to the mesoscale. Here we investigate both theoretically and experimentally the quantum engineering of nanoscale Kondo lattices – Kondo droplets – exemplifying nanoscopic replicas of heavy-fermion materials. We demonstrate that by changing a droplet’s real-space geometry, we can not only create coherently coupled Kondo droplets whose properties asymptotically approach those of a quantum-coherent Kondo lattice, but also markedly increase or decrease the droplet’s Kondo temperature. Furthermore we report on the discovery of a new quantum phenomenon – the Kondo echo – a signature of droplets containing Kondo holes functioning as direct probes of spatially extended, quantum-coherent Kondo cloud correlations.
Highlights
Atomic manipulation techniques have provided a bottom-up approach to investigating the unconventional properties and complex phases of strongly correlated electron materials
We demonstrate that a Kondo echo emerges at Kondo hole sites in a Kondo droplet as a characteristic signature of spatially extended, quantum-coherent Kondo cloud correlations
After benchmarking the intact lattices, we study defects in the form of Kondo holes created through missing Co adatoms (Fig. 1e)
Summary
Atomic manipulation techniques have provided a bottom-up approach to investigating the unconventional properties and complex phases of strongly correlated electron materials. Atomic manipulation techniques enable the controlled implementation of defects or vacancies, opening up a new field for studying the interplay between disorder and strong correlation effects These possibilities might hold the key to greatly advancing our understanding of the many unconventional properties and complex phases of strongly correlated electron materials at the macroscale[9,10]. We show that by changing a droplet’s real-space geometry, we can (a) quantum engineer coherently coupled Kondo droplets whose properties asymptotically approach those of a quantum-coherent Kondo lattice, and (b) markedly increase or decrease the droplet’s Kondo temperature As these coherent Kondo droplets can be created with fewer than 50 adatoms, our results open an arena for the exploration of heavy-fermion physics at the nanoscale. We demonstrate that a Kondo echo emerges at Kondo hole sites in a Kondo droplet as a characteristic signature of spatially extended, quantum-coherent Kondo cloud correlations
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