2017/07/31 by Stephen M. Winter, Kira Riedl, David Kaib +5 · 7 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Perovskite Materials and Applications #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.120.077203
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 077203 (2018) · final published version; 5 pages, 4 figures + supplemental
openalex created_date 2017/07/31 · arxiv created 2018/02/07 · openalex publication_date 2018/02/15 · arxiv updated 2018/02/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Recent studies have brought α-RuCl3 to the forefront of experimental searches for materials realizing Kitaev spin-liquid physics. This material exhibits strongly anisotropic exchange interactions afforded by the spin-orbit coupling of the 4d Ru centers. We investigate the dynamical response at finite temperature and magnetic field for a realistic model of the magnetic interactions in α-RuCl3. These regimes are thought to host unconventional paramagnetic states that emerge from the suppression of magnetic order. Using exact diagonalization calculations of the quantum model complemented by semi-classical analysis, we find a very rich evolution of the spin dynamics as the applied field suppresses the zigzag order and stabilizes a quantum paramagnetic state that is adiabatically connected to the fully polarized state at high fields. At finite temperature, we observe large redistributions of spectral weight that can be attributed to the anisotropic frustration of the model. These results are compared to recent experiments, and provide a roadmap for further studies of these regimes.