Kondo driven suppression of charge density wave in Van der Waals material UTe$_3$

Abstract

Competing electronic instabilities lie at the heart of emergent phenomena in quantum materials. In low-dimensional metals, Fermi-surface nesting can drive charge density wave (CDW) formation through a Peierls-like mechanism, while in strongly correlated systems, Kondo hybridization reconstructs the electronic structure by entangling localized moments with itinerant electrons. How these two fundamentally different instabilities interact$-$whether they coexist, compete, or mutually exclude each other$-$remains an open question. Here, we present suppression of charge density wave via the Kondo interaction in van der Waals material UTe$_3$. The angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) data reveals Fermi surface nesting under similar conditions as seen in RETe$_3$ compounds. Despite that, no CDW is found in UTe$_3$ after an extensive search. We demonstrate that strong hybridization between U 5$f$ electrons and Te $p$ states reconstructs the low-energy electronic structure, removes the instability, and preempts CDW formation. Our results reveal a rare example where Kondo hybridization preempts density wave formation, offering a new route to controlling ordering phenomena in correlated 2D materials.