Honeycomb-Layered Oxides With Silver Atom Bilayers and Emergence of Non-Abelian SU(2) Interactions

Honeycomb-layered oxides with monovalent or divalent, monolayered cationic lattices generally exhibit myriad crystalline features encompassing rich electrochemistry, geometries, and disorders, which particularly places them as attractive material candidates for next-generation energy storage applications. Herein, global honeycomb-layered oxide compositions, Ag₂ M₂ TeO₆ ( $$ .) exhibiting $$ atom bilayers with sub-valent states within Ag-rich crystalline domains of Ag₆ M₂ TeO₆ and $$ -deficient domains of $$ ( $$ ). The $$ -rich material characterized by aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy reveals local atomic structural disorders characterized by aperiodic stacking and incoherency in the bilayer arrangement of $$ atoms. Meanwhile, the global material not only displays high ionic conductivity but also manifests oxygen-hole electrochemistry during silver-ion extraction. Within the $$ -rich domains, the bilayered structure, argentophilic interactions therein and the expected $$ sub-valent states ( $$ , etc.) are theoretically understood via spontaneous symmetry breaking of SU(2)× U(1) gauge symmetry interactions amongst 3 degenerate mass-less chiral fermion states, justified by electron occupancy of silver $$ and 5s orbitals on a bifurcated honeycomb lattice. This implies that bilayered frameworks have research applications that go beyond the confines of energy storage.