Survival of itinerant excitations and quantum spin state transitions in YbMgGaO$_4$ with chemical disorder
| Autor: | Rao, X., Hussain, G., Huang, Q., Chu, W. J., Li, N., Zhao, X., Dun, Z., Choi, E. S., Asaba, T., Chen, L., Li, L., Yue, X. Y., Wang, N. N., Cheng, J. -G., Gao, Y. H., Shen, Y., Zhao, J., Chen, G., Zhou, H. D., Sun, X. F. |
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| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Nat. Commun. 12, 4949 (2021) |
| Druh dokumentu: | Working Paper |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41467-021-25247-6 |
| Popis: | A recent focus of quantum spin liquid (QSL) studies is how disorder/randomness in a QSL candidate affects its true magnetic ground state. The ultimate question is whether the QSL survives disorder or the disorder leads to a "spin-liquid-like" state, such as the proposed random-singlet (RS) state. Since disorder is a standard feature of most QSL candidates, this question represents a major challenge for QSL candidates. YbMgGaO$_4$, a triangular lattice antiferromagnet with effective spin-1/2 Yb$^{3+}$ ions, is an ideal system to address this question, since it shows no long-range magnetic ordering with Mg/Ga site disorder. Despite the intensive study, it remains unresolved as to whether YbMgGaO$_4$ is a QSL or in the RS state. Here, through ultralow-temperature thermal conductivity and magnetic torque measurements, plus specific heat and DC magnetization data, we observed a residual $\kappa_0/T$ term and series of quantum spin state transitions in the zero temperature limit for YbMgGaO$_4$. These observations strongly suggest that a QSL state with itinerant excitations and quantum spin fluctuations survives disorder in YbMgGaO$_4$. Comment: 31 pages, 10 figures |
| Databáze: | arXiv |
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