| Autor: |
Lebert, Blair W., Kim, Subin, Kim, Beom Hyun, Chun, Sae Hwan, Casa, Diego, Choi, Jaewon, Agrestini, Stefano, Zhou, Kejin, Garcia-Fernandez, Mirian, Kim, Young-June |
| Rok vydání: |
2023 |
| Předmět: |
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| Zdroj: |
Phys. Rev. B 108, 155122, 2023 |
| Druh dokumentu: |
Working Paper |
| DOI: |
10.1103/PhysRevB.108.155122 |
| Popis: |
A comparative resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) study of three well-known Kitaev materials is presented: $\alpha$-Li$_2$IrO$_3$, Na$_2$IrO$_3$, and $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$. Despite similar low-energy physics, these materials show distinct electronic properties, such as the large difference in the size of the charge gap. The RIXS spectra of the spin-orbit exciton for these materials show remarkably similar three-peak features, including sharp low energy peak (peak A) as well as transitions between $j_{\text{eff}}=1/2$ and $j_{\text{eff}}=3/2$ states. Comparison of experimental spectra with cluster calculations reveals that the observed three-peak structure reflects the significant role that non-local physics plays in the electronic structure of these materials. In particular, the low-energy peak A arises from a holon-doublon pair rather than a conventional particle-hole exciton as proposed earlier. Our study suggests that while spin-orbit assisted Mott insulator is still the best description for these materials, electron itinerancy cannot be ignored when formulating low-energy Hamiltonian of these materials. |
| Databáze: |
arXiv |
| Externí odkaz: |
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