Regular-triangle trimer and charge order preserving the Anderson condition in the pyrochlore structure of CsW2O6

Abstract

Since the discovery of the Verwey transition in magnetite, transition metal compounds with pyrochlore structures have been intensively studied as a platform for realizing remarkable electronic phase transitions. We report on a phase transition that preserves the cubic symmetry of the β-pyrochlore oxide CsW₂O₆, where each of W 5d electrons are confined in regular-triangle W₃ trimers. This trimer formation represents the self-organization of 5d electrons, which can be resolved into a charge order satisfying the Anderson condition in a nontrivial way, orbital order caused by the distortion of WO₆ octahedra, and the formation of a spin-singlet pair in a regular-triangle trimer. An electronic instability due to the unusual three-dimensional nesting of Fermi surfaces and the strong correlations of the 5d electrons characteristic of the pyrochlore oxides are both likely to play important roles in this charge-orbital-spin coupled phenomenon.