Issue |
EPL
Volume 114, Number 4, May 2016
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 47004 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Condensed Matter: Electronic Structure, Electrical, Magnetic and Optical Properties | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/114/47004 | |
Published online | 13 June 2016 |
Raman signatures of strong Kitaev exchange correlations in (Na1−xLix)2IrO3: Experiments and theory
1 Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Science - Bangalore 560012, India
2 The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, C.I.T. Campus - Chennai 600113, India
3 Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali - Knowledge City, Sector 81, Mohali 140306, India
(a) asood@physics.iisc.ernet.in (corresponding author)
Received: 13 November 2015
Accepted: 26 May 2016
Inelastic light scattering studies on single crystals of (Na1−xLix)2IrO3 ( and 0.15) show a polarization-independent broad band at ∼ 2750 cm−1 with a large band-width
. For Na2IrO3 the broad band is seen for temperatures
and persists inside the magnetically ordered state. For Li samples, the intensity of this mode increases, shifts to lower wave numbers, and persists to higher temperatures. Such a mode has recently been predicted (by Knolle et al.) as a signature of the Kitaev spin liquid. We assign the observation of the broad band to be a signature of strong Kitaev exchange correlations. The fact that the broad band persists even inside the magnetically ordered state suggests that dynamically fluctuating moments survive even below TN. This is further supported by our mean-field calculations. The Raman response calculated in mean-field theory shows that the broad band predicted for the SL state survives in the magnetically ordered state near the zigzag-spin liquid phase boundary. A comparison with the theoretical model gives an estimate of the Kitaev exchange interaction parameter to be
.
PACS: 78.30.Am – Elemental semiconductors and insulators / 75.10.Kt – Quantum spin liquids, valence bond phases and related phenomena / 75.10.Jm – Quantized spin models, including quantum spin frustration
© EPLA, 2016
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