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Impurity-mediated early condensation of an atomic layer electronic crystal

While impurity has been known widely to affect phase transitions, the atomistic mechanisms have rarely been disclosed. We directly show in atomic scale how impurity atoms induces the condensation of a representative electronic phase, charge density wave (CDW), with scanning tunneling microscopy. Oxygen impurity atoms on the self-assembled metallic atomic wire array on a silicon crystal condense CDW locally even above the transition temperature, More interestingly, the CDW along the wires is induced not by a single atomic impurity but by the cooperation of multiple impurities. First principles calculations disclose the mechanism of the cooperation as the coherent superposition of the local lattice strain induced by impurities, stressing the coupled electronic and lattice degrees of freedom for CDW. This newly discovered mechanism can widely be applied to various important electronic orders coupled to lattice, opening the possibility of the atomic scale strain engineering.