We explore, through a combination of x-ray diffraction and elastoresistivity measurements, the effect of disorder on the strain-tuned charge density wave (CDW) and associated multicriticality in ${\mathrm{Pd}}_x{\mathrm{ErTe}}_3$ ($x=0$, 0.01, 0.02 and 0.026). We focus particularly on the behavior near the strain-tuned bicritical point that occurs in pristine ${\mathrm{ErTe}}_3$ ($x=0$). Our study reveals that while Pd intercalation somewhat broadens the signatures of the CDW phase transitions, the line of first-order transitions at which the CDW reorients as a function of applied strain persists in the presence of disorder and still seemingly terminates at a critical point. The critical point occurs at a lower temperature and a lower strain compared to pristine ${\mathrm{ErTe}}_3$. Similarly, the nematic elastoresistance of ${\mathrm{Pd}}_x{\mathrm{ErTe}}_3$, though suppressed in magnitude and broadened relative to that of ${\mathrm{ErTe}}_3$, has a markedly more symmetric response around the critical point. These observations point to disorder driving a reduction in the system's electronic orthorhombicity even while the material remains irrevocably orthorhombic due to the presence of a glide plane in the crystal structure. Disorder, it would appear, reinforces the emergence of a pseudotetragonal electronic response in this fundamentally orthorhombic material.

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• Charge density waves
• Strain
• Disordered systems
• Crystal growth
• Focused ion beam
• Transport techniques
• X-ray diffraction
• X-ray pair-distribution function analysis