Rare-earth tritellurides

RTe₃ (R = La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm)

Also called RTe₃, LaTe₃, GdTe₃, TbTe₃, ErTe₃

van der Waals crystal metal

The cleanest textbook charge-density wave in a layered metal, available in eleven isostructural versions. The tellurium square nets have a nearly nested Fermi surface, so the electrons and lattice lock into a periodic modulation that in the lightest members survives above room temperature. Changing the rare earth squeezes the lattice without changing the chemistry, which shifts the transition and, in the heavier members, adds a second modulation at right angles to the first. One of them, GdTe₃, combines all of this with the highest electron mobility of any layered magnet, and it exfoliates.

Cell: Rectangular, a = 4.37 Å, b = 4.38 Å
Atoms per cell: 8
Ce–Te bonds: 3.22–3.38 Å
Te–Te bonds: 3.09 and 3.10 Å
Height: 9.37 Å between the outer atom centres

A corrugated slab of cerium and tellurium, capped on each face by a flat square net of tellurium. The square nets carry the conduction electrons, and it is in them that the charge-density wave forms, shifting the tellurium atoms in a wave whose period does not match the lattice. Neighbouring layers meet net to net across the van der Waals gap. The other rare earths build the same layer; smaller ones compress it and change the wave. One layer of the average structure of bulk CeTe₃, without the charge-density-wave modulation (Malliakas, Billinge, Kim and Kanatzidis, Journal of the American Chemical Society 127, 6510, 2005; COD 4124101): in-plane cell 4.37 × 4.38 Å.

Data sheet

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Kind of sheet: van der Waals crystal
Peels off a layered crystal, one sheet at a time
Behaves as: metal
Band gap: None – a metal, but a charge-density wave gaps part of the Fermi surface
Thickness: ~1.2 nm per layer
Structure: Flat square nets of tellurium – two per layer – separated by corrugated RTe slabs, with the tellurium sheets of neighbouring layers meeting across a van der Waals gap (orthorhombic)
Space group: LaTe₃: bulk Cmcm, monolayer P4/nmm
CeTe₃: bulk Cmcm, monolayer P4/nmm
Bulk: the Materials Project crystal linked below. Monolayer: the 2DMatPedia layer, as a periodic slab
Stability: Tellurium surfaces degrade in air over hours to days, so thin flakes are exfoliated and capped in an inert atmosphere; bulk crystals are cleaved fresh before spectroscopy.
First made: Charge-density waves across the series mapped by electron diffraction in 1995 (DiMasi and colleagues); ultrafast melting of the order in TbTe₃ reported in 2008 (Schmitt and colleagues); high-mobility exfoliated GdTe₃ in 2020 (Lei and colleagues)
Materials Project: LaTe₃
CeTe₃
Computed crystal structure and properties
2DMatPedia: LaTe₃
CeTe₃
Computed monolayer, exfoliated from a bulk crystal of the same compound

Compare with other materials

Key properties

Incommensurate charge-density wave from Fermi-surface nesting in the tellurium square nets, with sinusoidal atomic displacements
Chemical pressure tunes it: substituting a smaller rare earth compresses the lattice, shifts the modulation wavevector and lowers the transition temperature
Heavier members add a second charge-density wave, perpendicular to the first, at lower temperature
GdTe₃: electron mobility beyond 60,000 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ – the highest of any layered magnetic material – and exfoliation down to three monolayers
The rare-earth moments order antiferromagnetically at a few kelvin, on top of the charge order
Light pulses melt the charge-density wave in TbTe₃ and, in LaTe₃, create a transient one in the perpendicular direction that does not exist in equilibrium

How it is made

Single crystals from a tellurium-rich self flux, giving millimetre-scale plates
Mechanical exfoliation into thin flakes, down to three layers for GdTe₃
Chemical substitution across the rare-earth series as a pressure knob, and hydrostatic pressure for the same purpose

Uses, and how close they are

Model system for charge-density-wave physics and its ultrafast controllab
High-mobility layered magnets for spintronic and twistronic device studieslab

Readiness runs lab → prototype → pilot → deployed.

Open problems

How much of the charge order is nesting and how much is momentum-dependent electron–phonon coupling – the same argument as in the dichalcogenides, but with a cleaner Fermi surface
What decides where the second, perpendicular modulation appears in the series, and how do the two orders coexist?
Do light-induced states such as the transient perpendicular wave in LaTe₃ have equilibrium counterparts, or are they genuinely new phases?
Can the high mobility of GdTe₃ survive thinning to a monolayer and the transfer steps a device needs?

Going deeper

Short notes for specialists. Choose a lens in the header and yours comes first.

For theoreticians · your lens

RTe₃ is the reference case for a nesting-driven charge-density wave: an almost two-dimensional Fermi surface from tellurium p bands, a modulation wavevector that tracks the measured nesting vector, and a whole isostructural series in which the lattice constant can be tuned without changing the electron count. That makes it the natural place to test how much of the instability is Fermi-surface geometry and how much is the momentum dependence of electron–phonon coupling, and recent work adds orbital texture to the picture. Out of equilibrium, the same system supports transient orders with a different symmetry from the ground state, which time-dependent theory has to reproduce with the same parameters that describe equilibrium.

For experimentalists · your lens

Cleave fresh: the tellurium surface deteriorates, and photoemission and tunnelling results depend on it. Quote the rare earth, the transition temperature and the residual resistivity ratio together – across the series these move in step and make samples comparable. Electron and X-ray diffraction see the superlattice directly, which is the most reliable check that both modulations are present. For transport in flakes, encapsulate, and separate the charge-order signature from magnetic ordering of the rare earth at low temperature.

For engineers · your lens

A research material. GdTe₃’s mobility is high and it exfoliates, which makes it attractive for device physics, but air sensitivity, low magnetic ordering temperatures and the absence of a band gap keep it out of applications.

In the research tracks

Theory frontiers

Electron–phonon coupling and intrinsic mobility

Growth methods

Flux and self-flux growth

Recent news

The newest items tagged LaTe₃, GdTe₃, ErTe₃, from the news feed updated 5 Oct 2026.

Journal 3 Oct 2026 Nano Letters

Scalable, Simple, and Versatile Encapsulation of 2D Materials and Devices

Air-sensitive 2D materials present fundamental challenges for device integration. Encapsulation is required to preserve intrinsic properties, yet conventional strategies require complicated fabrication workflows and fail with thicker flakes. We demonstrate that electron-beam (e-beam) evaporated aluminum oxide (AlOx)…

ExperimentWTe₂ LaTe₃, GdTe₃, ErTe₃

Preprintnot yet peer reviewed 28 Sep 2026 arXiv

Enhanced sliding in the coexisting Charge Density Wave phase of strained TbTe3

In the last years, the application of mechanical tensile stress has been shown to trigger unconventional phases in quantum materials. Recently, an orientational transition of the charge density wave (CDW) of TbTe3 was reported under the application of moderate uniaxial tensile stress, associated to the in-plane a/c…

TheoryLaTe₃, GdTe₃, ErTe₃

Preprintnot yet peer reviewed 3 Sep 2026 arXiv

Dual Charge-Density-Waves in Two-dimensional DyTe3 and Their Distinct Impacts on Magneto-Transport Properties

Charge-density-waves (CDWs) are macroscopic quantum states defined by periodic modulations in electronic charge density coupled with lattice distortions. Despite significant research efforts, the evolution of electromagnetic transport properties in the presence of CDWs remains largely unexplored. Here, we report the…

ExperimentTheoryLaTe₃, GdTe₃, ErTe₃

Preprintnot yet peer reviewed 2 Jun 2026 arXiv

Reversible Superdense Ordering of Tetragonal Lithium in a Layered Material

Understanding lithium (Li) ordering and dynamics is foundational in energy storage. X-ray based experimental methods do not simultaneously provide atomic structure information together with chemical composition and local bonding information for lithium in solids. Here we employ scanning transmission electron microscopy…

ExperimentLaTe₃, GdTe₃, ErTe₃

Preprintnot yet peer reviewed 9 Apr 2026 arXiv

Revealing the nature of the charge density wave order of ErTe₃ via Raman scattering under anisotropic strain

The nature of the charge density wave (CDW) order of the rare-earth tritelluride ErTe3 is investigated by Raman scattering under anisotropic strain. The CDW state of ErTe3 is unconventional since it is accompanied by an unusual mirror symmetry breaking, whose origin remains to be understood. Studying the…