Bordelon Mitchell M, Kenney Eric, Liu Chunxiao, Hogan Tom, Posthuma Lorenzo, Kavand Marzieh, Lyu Yuanqi, Sherwin Mark, Butch N P, Brown Craig, Graf M J, Balents Leon, Wilson Stephen D
Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
Department of Physics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA.
Nat Phys. 2019;15(10). doi: 10.1038/s41567-019-0594-5.
Antiferromagnetically coupled spins on an isotropic triangular lattice are the paradigm of frustrated quantum magnetism, but structurally ideal realizations are rare. Here, we investigate NaYbO, which hosts an ideal triangular lattice of effective moments with no inherent site disorder. No signatures of conventional magnetic order appear down to 50 mK, strongly suggesting a quantum spin liquid ground state. We observe a two-peak specific heat and a nearly quadratic temperature dependence, in agreement with expectations for a two-dimensional Dirac spin liquid. Application of a magnetic field strongly perturbs the quantum disordered ground state and induces a clear transition into a collinear ordered state, consistent with a long-predicted up-up-down structure for a triangular-lattice XXZ Hamiltonian driven by quantum fluctuations. The observation of spin liquid signatures in zero field and quantum-induced ordering in intermediate fields in the same compound demonstrates an intrinsically quantum disordered ground state. We conclude that NaYbO is a model, versatile platform for exploring spin liquid physics with full tunability of field and temperature.
在各向同性三角形晶格上反铁磁耦合的自旋是受挫量子磁学的范例,但结构理想的实现却很罕见。在此,我们研究了NaYbO,它拥有一个有效磁矩的理想三角形晶格,且没有内在的位点无序。直至50 mK都未出现传统磁有序的迹象,这强烈表明其基态为量子自旋液体。我们观察到双峰值比热以及近乎二次方的温度依赖性,这与二维狄拉克自旋液体的预期相符。施加磁场会强烈扰动量子无序基态,并诱导出清晰的向共线有序态的转变,这与由量子涨落驱动的三角形晶格XXZ哈密顿量长期预测的上 - 上 - 下结构一致。在同一化合物中零场下自旋液体特征的观测以及中场下量子诱导的有序化表明其基态本质上是量子无序的。我们得出结论,NaYbO是一个用于探索自旋液体物理的模型、通用平台,具有场和温度的完全可调性。