Competing charge and spin instabilities and giant magnetoelastic coupling in CrSb
9 affiliations
- 1Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), San Sebastián, Spain.
- 2Centro de Física de Materiales (CFM-MPC), CSIC-UPV/EHU, San Sebastián, Spain.
- 3Fisika Aplikatua Saila, Gipuzkoako Ingeniaritza Eskola, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), San Sebastián, Spain.
- 4Department of Applied Physics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm 11419, Sweden.
- 5Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
- 6Swiss-Norwegian BeamLines at European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, BP 220, F-38043 Grenoble Cedex, France.
- 7European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), BP 220, F-38043 Grenoble Cedex, France.
- 8Département de Physique et Institut Quantique, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada.
- 9IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
Abstract
Electronic, magnetic, and lattice degrees of freedom are often strongly intertwined in quantum materials, giving rise to competing ordered states and emergent collective phenomena. Understanding how these interactions evolve across symmetry-breaking transitions is essential for identifying new mechanisms of electronic ordering. Here, we show that the antiferromagnet chromium antimonide provides an ideal platform to investigate this interplay and uncover short-range charge-order fluctuations at the M point of the Brillouin zone, q* = [Formula: see text], persisting well above the Néel temperature, TN. These fluctuations collapse upon entering the magnetically ordered phase, revealing a direct competition between charge and spin order parameters. At TN, the phonon dispersion at q* develops a pronounced Kohn-like anomaly, signaling strong electron-phonon coupling in the vicinity of the magnetic transition. Below TN, exchange striction markedly renormalizes the associated soft phonon mode by ∼6 milli-electron volts, corresponding to the largest spin-phonon coupling reported to date. First-principles calculations show that the relevant phonon branch is unstable at the harmonic level only in the absence of magnetic order, highlighting the remarkable sensitivity of the lattice to magnetic symmetry breaking. The suppression of charge correlations upon magnetic ordering, together with the abrupt reconstruction of the phonon spectrum at TN, demonstrates an exceptional coupling between charge, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom in chromium antimonide. With its chemically simple structure and symmetry-protected altermagnetic state, chromium antimonide emerges as a model system for exploring giant spin-phonon coupling, competing electronic instabilities, and emergent broken symmetries in altermagnetic materials.
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BibTeX
@article{korshunov2026competing,
title = {{Competing charge and spin instabilities and giant magnetoelastic coupling in CrSb}},
author = {A. Korshunov and M. Alkorta and C.-Y. Lim and F. Ballester and Cong Li and Zhilin Li and D. Chernyshov and A. Bosak and M. G. Vergniory and Ion Errea and S. Blanco-Canosa},
journal = {Science Advances},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aei0921},
url = {https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.aei0921},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Competing charge and spin instabilities and giant magnetoelastic coupling in CrSb
AU - A. Korshunov
AU - M. Alkorta
AU - C.-Y. Lim
AU - F. Ballester
AU - Cong Li
AU - Zhilin Li
AU - D. Chernyshov
AU - A. Bosak
AU - M. G. Vergniory
AU - Ion Errea
AU - S. Blanco-Canosa
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/30
JO - Science Advances
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aei0921
UR - https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.aei0921
AB - Electronic, magnetic, and lattice degrees of freedom are often strongly intertwined in quantum materials, giving rise to competing ordered states and emergent collective phenomena. Understanding how these interactions evolve across symmetry-breaking transitions is essential for identifying new mechanisms of electronic ordering. Here, we show that the antiferromagnet chromium antimonide provides an ideal platform to investigate this interplay and uncover short-range charge-order fluctuations at the M point of the Brillouin zone, q* = [Formula: see text], persisting well above the Néel temperature, TN. These fluctuations collapse upon entering the magnetically ordered phase, revealing a direct competition between charge and spin order parameters. At TN, the phonon dispersion at q* develops a pronounced Kohn-like anomaly, signaling strong electron-phonon coupling in the vicinity of the magnetic transition. Below TN, exchange striction markedly renormalizes the associated soft phonon mode by ∼6 milli-electron volts, corresponding to the largest spin-phonon coupling reported to date. First-principles calculations show that the relevant phonon branch is unstable at the harmonic level only in the absence of magnetic order, highlighting the remarkable sensitivity of the lattice to magnetic symmetry breaking. The suppression of charge correlations upon magnetic ordering, together with the abrupt reconstruction of the phonon spectrum at TN, demonstrates an exceptional coupling between charge, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom in chromium antimonide. With its chemically simple structure and symmetry-protected altermagnetic state, chromium antimonide emerges as a model system for exploring giant spin-phonon coupling, competing electronic instabilities, and emergent broken symmetries in altermagnetic materials.
SN - 2375-2548
ER -