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Updated: Sep 19, 2025

Phase Diagram Characterization Using Magnetic Beads as Liquid Carriers
Published on: September 4, 2015
Discovery of a Stripe Phase in an Elemental Solid
Maksim Litskevich1, Md Shafayat Hossain1, Yang Fu2,3
1Laboratory for Topological Quantum Matter and Advanced Spectroscopy (B7), Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, United States.
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Translational symmetry breaking is foundational to condensed matter physics because it is associated with crystal formation. At much lower energy scales, the breaking of crystalline translational symmetry can be driven by electronic, rather than ionic, degrees of freedom and may give rise to stripe order, a unidirectional ordered state. Such symmetry breaking has been seen in two-dimensional and strongly correlated systems. Here, for the first time, we report the observation of stripe order in an elemental solid, tellurium. Through topographic and spectroscopic imaging, we discover a commensurate 4 × 1 stripe phase. Surprisingly, this exotic order is so robust that it survives close to room temperature. Notably, our diffraction experiments confirm the bulk nature of the stripe order, showing the minuteness of potential lattice distortion associated with the order. Our discovery of the stripe order in tellurium opens new windows to understanding the spontaneous symmetry breaking in elemental solids.
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