2020/08/31 by Rico Schönemann, Shusaku Imajo, Franziska Weickert +14 · 1 citation
Chemical Engineering · Chemistry · Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Antiferromagnetism #Catalysis and Oxidation Reactions #Chemistry #Condensed matter physics #Crystallography #Field (mathematics) #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Magnetic field #Magnetic refrigeration #Magnetism in coordination complexes #Magnetization #Materials science #Mathematics #Order (exchange) #Paramagnetism #Phase (matter) #Phase diagram #Phase transition #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Thermal #Thermal and Kinetic Analysis #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.102.214432
published as Phys. Rev. B 102, 214432 (2020)
arxiv created 2021/01/11 · arxiv updated 2021/01/12 · openalex publication_date 2021/03/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We discuss the implications that new magnetocaloric, thermal expansion, and magnetostriction data in \ensuremathα\text\ensuremath-RuCl3 single crystals have on its temperature-field phase diagram and uncover the magnetic-field dependence of an apparent energy gap structure \mathrm\ensuremathΔ(H) that evolves when the low-temperature antiferromagnetic order is suppressed. We show that, depending on how the thermal expansion data are modeled, \mathrm\ensuremathΔ(H) can show a cubic field dependence and remain finite at zero field, consistent with the pure Kitaev model hosting itinerant Majorana fermions and localized ℤ2 fluxes. Our magnetocaloric effect data provide, below 1\phantom\rule0.28em0exK, unambiguous evidence for dissipative phenomena at Hc, a smoking gun for a first-order phase transition. Conversely, our results show little support for a phase transition from a QSL to a polarized paramagnetic state above Hc.