Momentum-independent magnetic excitation continuum in the honeycomb iridate H3LiIr2O6

Momentum-independent magnetic excitation continuum in the honeycomb iridate H3LiIr2O6

Blog Article

Abstract Understanding the interplay between the inherent disorder and Jewelry Dish the correlated fluctuating-spin ground state is a key element in the search for quantum spin liquids.H3LiIr2O6 is considered to be a spin liquid that is proximate to the Kitaev-limit quantum spin liquid.Its ground state shows no magnetic order or spin freezing as expected for the spin liquid state.

However, hydrogen zero-point motion and stacking faults are known to be present.The resulting bond disorder has been invoked to explain the existence of unexpected low-energy spin excitations, although data interpretation remains challenging.Here, we use resonant X-ray spectroscopies to map the collective excitations in H3LiIr2O6 and characterize its magnetic state.

In the low-temperature correlated state, we reveal a broad bandwidth of magnetic excitations.The central energy and the high-energy tail of the continuum Accessory are consistent with expectations for dominant ferromagnetic Kitaev interactions between dynamically fluctuating spins.Furthermore, the absence of a momentum dependence to these excitations are consistent with disorder-induced broken translational invariance.

Our low-energy data and the energy and width of the crystal field excitations support an interpretation of H3LiIr2O6 as a disordered topological spin liquid in close proximity to bond-disordered versions of the Kitaev quantum spin liquid.