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Kinetic Energy Driven Ferromagnetic Insulator

Jinyuan Ye1,2,3, Yuchi He4,*, and Congjun Wu2,3,5,6,†

  • *Contact author: yuchi.he@physics.ox.ac.uk
  • †Contact author: wucongjun@westlake.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 086504 – Published 27 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/mg2p-3f4k

Abstract

We construct a minimal model of interacting fermions establishing a ferromagnetic insulating phase. It is based on the Hubbard model on a trimerized triangular lattice in the regime of t≫|t′|>0 with t and t′ the intra- and intertrimer hopping amplitudes, respectively. At the 13-filling, each trimer becomes a triplet spin-1 moment, and the intertrimer superexchange is ferromagnetic with J=−227(t′2/t) in the limit of U/t=+∞. As U/t becomes finite, the antiferromagnetic superexchange competes with the ferromagnetic one. The system enters into a frustrated antiferromagnetic insulator when λ>U/t≫1 where λ is a constant at the order of 10. In contrast, a similar analysis to the trimerized Kagome lattice shows that only the antiferromagnetic superexchange exists at 13-filling.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 086504– Published 27 February, 2026
  • Received 31 October 2024
  • Revised 9 January 2026
  • Accepted 23 January 2026
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