2016/12/31 by P. Lampen-Kelley, A. Banerjee, Arnab Banerjee +11 · 52 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Condensed matter physics #Diffraction #Electron #Ground state #Inelastic neutron scattering #Neutron diffraction #Neutron scattering #Order (exchange) #Perovskite Materials and Applications #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Quantum spin liquid #Scattering #Spin (aerodynamics) #Spin polarization #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.119.237203
published in Physical Review Letters 119(23), 237203 (American Physical Society)
arxiv created 2017/10/26 · openalex publication_date 2017/12/06 · arxiv updated 2017/12/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The insulating honeycomb magnet α-RuCl3 exhibits fractionalized excitations that signal its proximity to a Kitaev quantum spin liquid state; however, at T=0, fragile long-range magnetic order arises from non-Kitaev terms in the Hamiltonian. Spin vacancies in the form of Ir3+ substituted for Ru are found to destabilize this long-range order. Neutron diffraction and bulk characterization of Ru1-xIrxCl3 show that the magnetic ordering temperature is suppressed with increasing x, and evidence of zizag magnetic order is absent for x>0.3. Inelastic neutron scattering demonstrates that the signature of fractionalized excitations is maintained over the full range of x investigated. The depleted lattice without magnetic order thus hosts a spin-liquid-like ground state that may indicate the relevance of Kitaev physics in the magnetically dilute limit of RuCl3.