- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review B

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Letter
  • Open Access

Fermi-liquid behavior of nonaltermagnetic RuO2

Maxim Wenzel1, Ece Uykur2,*, Sahana Rößler3, Marcus Schmidt3, Oleg Janson4, Achyut Tiwari1, Martin Dressel1, and Alexander A. Tsirlin5,†

  • *Contact author: e.uykur@hzdr.de
  • †Contact author: altsirlin@gmail.com
PDF

Phys. Rev. B 111, L041115 – Published 28 January, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.111.L041115

Abstract

The presence of magnetism in potentially altermagnetic RuO2 has been a subject of intense debate. Using broadband infrared spectroscopy combined with density-functional band-structure calculations, we show that the optical conductivity of RuO2, the bulk probe of its electronic structure, is best described by a nonmagnetic model. The sharp Pauli edge demonstrates the presence of a Dirac nodal line lying 45 meV below the Fermi level. An excellent match between the experimental and ab initio plasma frequencies underpins the weakness of electronic correlations. The intraband part of the optical conductivity indicates Fermi-liquid behavior with two distinct scattering rates below 150 K. Fermi-liquid theory also accounts for the temperature-dependent magnetic susceptibility of RuO2 and allows a consistent description of this material as a paramagnetic metal.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (79)

  1. H. Over, Surface chemistry of ruthenium dioxide in heterogeneous catalysis and electrocatalysis: From fundamental to applied research, Chem. Rev. 112, 3356 (2012).
  2. G. S. Iles and M. E. A. Casale, Ruthenium oxide glaze resistors, Platinum Metal Rev. 11, 126 (1967).
  3. D. Majumdar, T. Maiyalagan, and Z. Jiang, Recent progress in ruthenium oxide-based composites for supercapacitor applications, ChemElectroChem 6, 4343 (2019).
  4. L. Šmejkal, J. Sinova, and T. Jungwirth, Emerging research landscape of altermagnetism, Phys. Rev. X 12, 040501 (2022).
  5. Z. Feng, X. Zhou, L. Šmejkal, L. Wu, Z. Zhu, H. Guo, R. González-Hernández, X. Wang, H. Yan, P. Qin, X. Zhang, H. Wu, H. Chen, Z. Meng, L. Liu, Z. Xia, J. Sinova, T. Jungwirth, and Z. Liu, An anomalous Hall effect in altermagnetic ruthenium dioxide, Nat. Electron. 5, 735 (2022).
  6. A. Bose, N. J. Schreiber, R. Jain, D.-F. Shao, H. P. Nair, J. Sun, X. S. Zhang, D. A. Muller, E. Y. Tsymbal, D. G. Schlom, and D. C. Ralph, Tilted spin current generated by the collinear antiferromagnet ruthenium dioxide, Nat. Electron. 5, 267 (2022).
  7. H. Bai, L. Han, X. Y. Feng, Y. J. Zhou, R. X. Su, Q. Wang, L. Y. Liao, W. X. Zhu, X. Z. Chen, F. Pan, X. L. Fan, and C. Song, Observation of spin splitting torque in a collinear antiferromagnet RuO2, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 197202 (2022).
  8. S. Karube, T. Tanaka, D. Sugawara, N. Kadoguchi, M. Kohda, and J. Nitta, Observation of spin-splitter torque in collinear antiferromagnetic RuO2, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 137201 (2022).
  9. S. G. Jeong, I. H. Choi, S. Nair, L. Buiarelli, B. Pourbahari, J. Y. Oh, N. Bassim, A. Seo, W. S. Choi, R. M. Fernandes, T. Birol, L. Zhao, J. S. Lee, and B. Jalan, Altermagnetic polar metallic phase in ultra-thin epitaxially-strained RuO2 films, arXiv:2405.05838.
  10. Z. H. Zhu, J. Strempfer, R. R. Rao, C. A. Occhialini, J. Pelliciari, Y. Choi, T. Kawaguchi, H. You, J. F. Mitchell, Y. Shao-Horn, and R. Comin, Anomalous antiferromagnetism in metallic RuO2 determined by resonant x-ray scattering, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 017202 (2019).
  11. B. Z. Gregory, J. Strempfer, D. Weinstock, J. P. Ruf, Y. Sun, H. Nair, N. J. Schreiber, D. G. Schlom, K. M. Shen, and A. Singer, Strain-induced orbital-energy shift in antiferromagnetic RuO2 revealed by resonant elastic x-ray scattering, Phys. Rev. B 106, 195135 (2022).
  12. T. Berlijn, P. C. Snijders, O. Delaire, H.-D. Zhou, T. A. Maier, H.-B. Cao, S.-X. Chi, M. Matsuda, Y. Wang, M. R. Koehler, P. R. C. Kent, and H. H. Weitering, Itinerant antiferromagnetism in RuO2, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 077201 (2017).
  13. O. Fedchenko, J. Minár, A. Akashdeep, S. W. D'Souza, D. Vasilyev, O. Tkach, L. Odenbreit, Q. Nguyen, D. Kutnyakhov, N. Wind, L. Wenthaus, M. Scholz, K. Rossnagel, M. Hoesch, M. Aeschlimann, B. Stadtmüller, M. Kläui, G. Schönhense, T. Jungwirth, A. B. Hellenes et al., Observation of time-reversal symmetry breaking in the band structure of altermagnetic RuO2, Sci. Adv. 10, eadj4883 (2024).
  14. J. E. Graebner, E. S. Greiner, and W. D. Ryden, Magnetothermal oscillations in RuO2, OsO2, and IrO2, Phys. Rev. B 13, 2426 (1976).
  15. L. F. Mattheiss, Electronic structure of RuO2, OsO2, and IrO2, Phys. Rev. B 13, 2433 (1976).
  16. B. Y. Yavorsky, O. V. Krasovska, E. E. Krasovskii, A. N. Yaresko, and V. N. Antonov, Ab initio calculation of the Fermi surface of RuO2, Phys. B: Condens. Matter 225, 243 (1996).
  17. X. Peng, Z. Liu, S. Zhang, Y. Zhou, Y. Sun, Y. Su, C. Wu, T. Zhou, L. Liu, Y. Li, H. Wang, J. Yang, B. Chen, Y. Li, C. Xi, J. Du, Z. Jiao, Q. Wu, and M. Fang, Universal scaling behavior of transport properties in non-magnetic RuO2, arXiv:2412.12258.
  18. M. Hiraishi, H. Okabe, A. Koda, R. Kadono, T. Muroi, D. Hirai, and Z. Hiroi, Nonmagnetic ground state in RuO2 revealed by muon spin rotation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 166702 (2024).
  19. P. Keßler, L. Garcia-Gassull, A. Suter, T. Prokscha, Z. Salman, D. Khalyavin, P. Manuel, F. Orlandi, I. I. Mazin, R. Valentí, and S. Moser, Absence of magnetic order in RuO2: insights from μSR spectroscopy and neutron diffraction, npj Spintronics 2, 50 (2024).
  20. L. Kiefer, F. Wirth, A. Bertin, P. Becker, L. Bohatý, K. Schmalzl, A. Stunault, J. A. Rodríguez-Velamazán, O. Fabelo, and M. Braden, Crystal structure and absence of magnetic order in single crystalline RuO2, arXiv:2410.05850.
  21. J. Liu, J. Zhan, T. Li, J. Liu, S. Cheng, Y. Shi, L. Deng, M. Zhang, C. Li, J. Ding, Q. Jiang, M. Ye, Z. Liu, Z. Jiang, S. Wang, Q. Li, Y. Xie, Y. Wang, S. Qiao, J. Wen et al., Absence of altermagnetic spin splitting character in rutile oxide RuO2, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 176401 (2024).
  22. A. K. Goel, G. Skorinko, and F. H. Pollak, Optical properties of single-crystal rutile RuO2 and IrO2 in the range 0.5 to 9.5 eV, Phys. Rev. B 24, 7342 (1981).
  23. H. L. Park, C. H. Chung, C. H. Kim, and H. S. Kim, Optical properties of RuO2 thin film, J. Mater. Sci. Lett. 6, 1093 (1987).
  24. A. Belkind, Z. Orban, J. L. Vossen, and J. A. Woollam, Optical properties of RuO2 films deposited by reactive sputtering, Thin Solid Films 207, 242 (1992).
  25. P. Hones, T. Gerfin, and M. Grätzel, Spectroscopic ellipsometry of RuO2 films prepared by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition, Appl. Phys. Lett. 67, 3078 (1995).
  26. G. Mondio, F. Neri, M. Allegrini, A. Iembo, and F. Fuso, Energy loss spectroscopy of RuO2 thin films, J. Appl. Phys. 82, 1730 (1997).
  27. A. V. Pronin and M. Dressel, Nodal semimetals: A survey on optical conductivity, Phys. Status Solidi B 258, 2000027 (2021).
  28. See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/PhysRevB.111.L041115 for details of the sample growth and characterization as well as auxiliary DFT results, additional optical data, and their analysis, which includes Refs. [29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35].
  29. K. Momma and F. Izumi, VESTA 3 for three-dimensional visualization of crystal, volumetric and morphology data, J. Appl. Crystallogr. 44, 1272 (2011).
  30. J. P. Carbotte, Optical response of a line node semimetal, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 29, 045301 (2017).
  31. S. P. Mukherjee and J. P. Carbotte, Transport and optics at the node in a nodal loop semimetal, Phys. Rev. B 95, 214203 (2017).
  32. S. Ahn, E. J. Mele, and H. Min, Electrodynamics on Fermi cyclides in nodal line semimetals, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 147402 (2017).
  33. S. J. Youn, T. H. Rho, B. I. Min, and K. S. Kim, Extended Drude model analysis of noble metals, Phys. Status Solidi B 244, 1354 (2007).
  34. A. M. Awasthi, L. Degiorgi, G. Grüner, Y. Dalichaouch, and M. B. Maple, Complete optical spectrum of CeAl3, Phys. Rev. B 48, 10692 (1993).
  35. G. Bossé, L. S. Bilbro, R. V. Aguilar, L. D. Pan, W. Liu, A. V. Stier, Y. Li, L. H. Greene, J. Eckstein, and N. P. Armitage, Low energy electrodynamics of the Kondo-lattice antiferromagnet CeCu2Ge2, Phys. Rev. B 85, 155105 (2012).
  36. A. N. Guthrie and L. T. Bourland, Magnetic susceptibilities and ionic moments in the palladium and platinum groups, Phys. Rev. 37, 303 (1931).
  37. J. M. Fletcher, W. E. Gardner, B. F. Greenfield, M. J. Holdoway, and M. H. Rand, Magnetic and other studies of ruthenium dioxide and its hydrate, J. Chem. Soc. A, 653 (1968).
  38. W. D. Ryden and A. W. Lawson, Magnetic susceptibility of IrO2 and RuO2, J. Chem. Phys. 52, 6058 (1970).
  39. W. D. Ryden, A. W. Lawson, and C. C. Sartain, Electrical transport properties of IrO2 and RuO2, Phys. Rev. B 1, 1494 (1970).
  40. Y. S. Huang, H. L. Park, and F. H. Pallak, Growth and characterization of RuO2 single crystals, Mater. Res. Bull. 17, 1305 (1982).
  41. J. J. Lin, S. M. Huang, Y. H. Lin, T. C. Lee, H. Liu, X. X. Zhang, R. S. Chen, and Y. S. Huang, Low temperature electrical transport properties of RuO2 and IrO2 single crystals, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 16, 8035 (2004).
  42. F. Pawula, A. Fakih, R. Daou, S. Hébert, N. Mordvinova, O. Lebedev, D. Pelloquin, and A. Maignan, Multiband transport in RuO2, Phys. Rev. B 110, 064432 (2024).
  43. J. J. Lin, W. Xu, Y. L. Zhong, J. H. Huang, and Y. S. Huang, Electron-electron scattering times in low-diffusivity thick RuO2 and IrO2 films, Phys. Rev. B 59, 344 (1999).
  44. M. Uchida, T. Nomoto, M. Musashi, R. Arita, and M. Kawasaki, Superconductivity in uniquely strained RuO2 films, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 147001 (2020).
  45. J. P. Ruf, H. Paik, N. J. Schreiber, H. P. Nair, L. Miao, J. K. Kawasaki, J. N. Nelson, B. D. Faeth, Y. Lee, B. H. Goodge, B. Pamuk, C. J. Fennie, L. F. Kourkoutis, D. G. Schlom, and K. M. Shen, Strain-stabilized superconductivity, Nat. Commun. 12, 59 (2021).
  46. J. Liu, L. Gao, Y. T. Zou, T. Lin, M. T. Zhu, X. Y. Lyu, C. Lu, Y. Q. Wang, A. L. Ji, Q. H. Zhang, Z. G. Cheng, L. Gu, Z. X. Cao, and N. P. Lu, Emergent weak antilocalization and wide-temperature-range electronic phase diagram in epitaxial RuO2 thin film, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 35, 405603 (2023).
  47. D. B. Tanner, Use of x-ray scattering functions in Kramers-Kronig analysis of reflectance, Phys. Rev. B 91, 035123 (2015).
  48. P. Blaha, K. Schwarz, G. Madsen, D. Kvasnicka, J. Luitz, R. Laskowski, F. Tran, and L. Marks, WIEN2k, An Augmented Plane Wave + Local Orbitals Program for Calculating Crystal Properties (Karlheinz Schwarz, Technische Universität Wien, Austria, 2018).
  49. P. Blaha, K. Schwarz, F. Tran, R. Laskowski, G. K. H. Madsen, and L. D. Marks, WIEN2k: An APW+lo program for calculating the properties of solids, J. Chem. Phys. 152, 074101 (2020).
  50. K. Koepernik and H. Eschrig, Full-potential nonorthogonal local-orbital minimum-basis band-structure scheme, Phys. Rev. B 59, 1743 (1999).
  51. J. Haines, J. M. Léger, O. Schulte, and S. Hull, Neutron diffraction study of the ambient-pressure, rutile-type and the high-pressure, CaCl2-type phases of ruthenium dioxide, Acta Crystallogr., Sect. B 53, 880 (1997).
  52. J. P. Perdew, K. Burke, and M. Ernzerhof, Generalized gradient approximation made simple, Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 3865 (1996).
  53. K.-H. Ahn, A. Hariki, K.-W. Lee, and J. Kuneš, Antiferromagnetism in RuO2 as d-wave Pomeranchuk instability, Phys. Rev. B 99, 184432 (2019).
  54. L. Šmejkal, A. Marmodoro, K.-H. Ahn, R. González-Hernández, I. Turek, S. Mankovsky, H. Ebert, S. W. D'Souza, O. Šipr, J. Sinova, and T. Jungwirth, Chiral magnons in altermagnetic RuO2, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 256703 (2023).
  55. A. Smolyanyuk, I. I. Mazin, L. Garcia-Gassull, and R. Valentí, Fragility of the magnetic order in the prototypical altermagnet RuO2, Phys. Rev. B 109, 134424 (2024).
  56. X. Zhou, W. Feng, R.-W. Zhang, L. Šmejkal, J. Sinova, Y. Mokrousov, and Y. Yao, Crystal thermal transport in altermagnetic RuO2, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 056701 (2024).
  57. A. Hariki, Y. Takahashi, and J. Kuneš, X-ray magnetic circular dichroism in RuO2, Phys. Rev. B 109, 094413 (2024).
  58. C. Ambrosch-Draxl and J. Sofo, Linear optical properties of solids within the full-potential linearized augmented planewave method, Comput. Phys. Commun. 175, 1 (2006).
  59. E. Uykur, B. R. Ortiz, S. D. Wilson, M. Dressel, and A. A. Tsirlin, Optical detection of the density-wave instability in the kagome metal KV3Sb5, npj Quantum Mater. 7, 16 (2022).
  60. D. N. Basov, R. D. Averitt, D. van der Marel, M. Dressel, and K. Haule, Electrodynamics of correlated electron materials, Rev. Mod. Phys. 83, 471 (2011).
  61. M. Wenzel, B. R. Ortiz, S. D. Wilson, M. Dressel, A. A. Tsirlin, and E. Uykur, Optical study of RbV3Sb5: Multiple density-wave gaps and phonon anomalies, Phys. Rev. B 105, 245123 (2022).
  62. M. Wenzel, E. Uykur, A. A. Tsirlin, S. Pal, R. M. Roy, C. Yi, C. Shekhar, C. Felser, A. V. Pronin, and M. Dressel, Intriguing low-temperature phase in the antiferromagnetic kagome metal FeGe, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 266505 (2024).
  63. Y. Shao, A. N. Rudenko, J. Hu, Z. Sun, Y. Zhu, S. Moon, A. J. Millis, S. Yuan, A. I. Lichtenstein, D. Smirnov, Z. Q. Mao, M. I. Katsnelson, and D. N. Basov, Electronic correlations in nodal-line semimetals, Nat. Phys. 16, 636 (2020).
  64. O. V. Krasovska, E. E. Krasovskii, and V. N. Antonov, Ab initio calculation of the optical and photoelectron properties of RuO2, Phys. Rev. B 52, 11825 (1995).
  65. J. S. de Almeida and R. Ahuja, Electronic and optical properties of RuO2 and IrO2, Phys. Rev. B 73, 165102 (2006).
  66. M. B. Schilling, L. M. Schoop, B. V. Lotsch, M. Dressel, and A. V. Pronin, Flat optical conductivity in ZrSiS due to two-dimensional Dirac bands, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 187401 (2017).
  67. V. Jovic, R. J. Koch, S. K. Panda, H. Berger, P. Bugnon, A. Magrez, K. E. Smith, S. Biermann, C. Jozwiak, A. Bostwick, E. Rotenberg, and S. Moser, Dirac nodal lines and flat-band surface state in the functional oxide RuO2, Phys. Rev. B 98, 241101(R) (2018).
  68. Y. Sun, Y. Zhang, C.-X. Liu, C. Felser, and B. Yan, Dirac nodal lines and induced spin Hall effect in metallic rutile oxides, Phys. Rev. B 95, 235104 (2017).
  69. D. L. Maslov and A. V. Chubukov, Optical response of correlated electron systems, Rep. Prog. Phys. 80, 026503 (2017).
  70. C. Berthod, J. Mravlje, X. Deng, R. Žitko, D. van der Marel, and A. Georges, Non-Drude universal scaling laws for the optical response of local Fermi liquids, Phys. Rev. B 87, 115109 (2013).
  71. A. Tytarenko, Y. Huang, A. de Visser, S. Johnston, and E. van Heumen, Direct observation of a Fermi liquid-like normal state in an iron-pnictide superconductor, Sci. Rep. 5, 12421 (2015).
  72. A. Pustogow, Y. Saito, A. Löhle, M. S. Alonso, A. Kawamoto, V. Dobrosavljević, M. Dressel, and S. Fratini, Rise and fall of Landau's quasiparticles while approaching the Mott transition, Nat. Commun. 12, 1571 (2021).
  73. S. Misawa and K. Kanematsu, Susceptibility maximum and Fermi-liquid effect in 4d and 5d transition metals, J. Phys. F 6, 2119 (1976).
  74. G. M. Carneiro and C. J. Pethick, Finite-temperature contributions to the magnetic susceptibility of a normal Fermi liquid, Phys. Rev. B 16, 1933 (1977).
  75. A. V. Chubukov and D. L. Maslov, Nonanalytic corrections to the Fermi-liquid behavior, Phys. Rev. B 68, 155113 (2003).
  76. C. J. Kriessman and H. B. Callen, The magnetic susceptibility of the transition elements, Phys. Rev. 94, 837 (1954).
  77. M. Shimizu, Itinerant electron magnetism, Rep. Prog. Phys. 44, 329 (1981).
  78. E. V. Galoshina, Magnetic susceptibility of d-band transition metals that are not magnetically ordered, Sov. Phys. Usp. 17, 345 (1974).
  79. M. Wenzel, E. Uykur, S. Rößler, M. Schmidt, O. Janson, A. Tiwari, M. Dressel, and A. A. Tsirlin, Data set: Fermi-liquid behavior of non-altermagnetic RuO2, Rodare (2025), doi: 10.14278/rodare.3542.

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. B 111, L041115– Published 28 January, 2025
  • Received 15 July 2024
  • Revised 22 October 2024
  • Accepted 8 January 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation