2026/07/13 by Zhouyi Yin, Zheng Shi, Shuxuan Zhang +9
#cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.str-el
Altermagnets host magnetic compensation together with non-relativistic spin-split bands, a coexistence enabled by crystal symmetry. Yet whether and how crystal symmetry organizes collective electronic order remains largely unexplored. Here we uncover a symmetry-driven cascade of finite-q charge order in a d-wave altermagnet Rb1-δV2Te2O, using phase-resolved scanning tunneling microscopy. A primary density-wave instability drives an initial electronic reconstruction, followed by the emergence of a nematic component and an off-axis modulation with wave vectors geometrically tied to the preceding orders. Phase-resolved spectroscopy distinguishes these components through separate contrast-inversion energies and maps out branch-selective spectral-weight redistribution within the off-axis mode. Together with doping and temperature evolution, these observations establish a highly coordinated hierarchy of coupled density-wave instabilities, consistent with successive symmetry lowering. This multi-component hierarchy can be well described in the Landau framework through sequential softening of the charge orders, where bilinear coupling to their compatible octupolar partners at the lower-symmetry stages enables mutual stabilization within an intertwined charge-multipole state. Such a transparent realization of a charge-order cascade shows how altermagnetic symmetry can extend beyond band formation to organize collective electronic order, offering a new perspective on emergent many-body states in correlated quantum materials.