Electrical resistivity across a nematic quantum critical point

Correlated electron systems are highly susceptible to various forms of electronic order. By tuning the transition temperature towards absolute zero, striking deviations from conventional metallic (Fermi-liquid) behaviour can be realized. Evidence for electronic nematicity, a correlated electronic state with broken rotational symmetry, has been reported in a host of metallic systems1–5 that exhibit this so-called quantum critical behaviour. In all cases, however, the nematicity is found to be intertwined with other forms of order, such as antiferromagnetism5–7 or charge-density-wave order8, that might themselves be responsible for the observed behaviour. The iron chalcogenide FeSe1−xSx is unique in this respect because its nematic order appears to exist in isolation9–11, although until now, the impact of nematicity on the electronic ground state has been obscured by superconductivity. Here we use high magnetic fields to destroy the superconducting state in FeSe1−xSx and follow the evolution of the electrical resistivity across the nematic quantum critical point. Classic signatures of quantum criticality are revealed: an enhancement in the coefficient of the T2 resistivity (due to electron–electron scattering) on approaching the critical point and, at the critical point itself, a strictly T-linear resistivity that extends over a decade in temperature T. In addition to revealing the phenomenon of nematic quantum criticality, the observation of T-linear resistivity at a nematic critical point also raises the question of whether strong nematic fluctuations play a part in the transport properties of other ‘strange metals’, in which T-linear resistivity is observed over an extended regime in their respective phase diagrams.