Emergent tetragonality in a fundamentally orthorhombic material | Science Advances

Symmetry plays a key role in determining the physical properties of materials. By Neumann’s principle, the properties of a material remain invariant under the symmetry operations of the space group to which the material belongs. Continuous phase transitions are associated with a spontaneous reduction in symmetry. Less common are examples where proximity to a continuous phase transition leads to an increase in symmetry. We find signatures of an emergent tetragonal symmetry close to a charge density wave (CDW) bicritical point in a fundamentally orthorhombic material, ErTe ₃ , for which the two distinct CDW phase transitions are tuned via anisotropic strain. We first establish that tension along the a axis favors an abrupt rotation of the CDW wave vector from the c to a axis and infer the presence of a bicritical point where the two continuous phase transitions meet. We then observe a divergence of the nematic elastoresistivity approaching this putative bicritical point, indicating an emergent tetragonality in the critical behavior.