Abstract
One of the most important issues in modern condensed matter physics is the realization of fractionalized excitations, such as the Majorana excitations in the Kitaev quantum spin liquid. To this aim, the 3d-based Kitaev material Na2Co2TeO6 is a promising candidate whose magnetic phase diagram of B // a* contains a field-induced intermediate magnetically disordered phase within 7.5 T < |B| < 10 T. The experimental observations, including the restoration of the crystalline point group symmetry in the angle-dependent torque and the coexisting magnon excitations and spinon-continuum in the inelastic neutron scattering spectrum, provide strong evidence that this disordered phase is a field induced quantum spin liquid with partially polarized spins. Our variational Monte Carlo simulation with the effective K-J1-Γ-Γ'-J3 model reproduces the experimental data and further supports this conclusion.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 100082 |
| Journal | Innovation Materials |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 18 2024 |
Funding
We gratefully acknowledge the helpful discussions of Dr. Tian Shang, East China Normal University. J.M. and Z.X.L. thank the financial support from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant Nos. 2022YFA1402702, 2018YFA0704300, and 2023YFA1406500). G.T.L, Z.X.L., and J.M. thank the National Science Foundation of China (Nos. U2032213, 11774223, 12004243, 11974421, 12374166 and 12134020). J.M. thanks the interdisciplinary program Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center (Grant No. WHMFC 202122), Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and a Shanghai talent program. G.T.L thanks the projects funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2022T150414) and the Startup Fund for Young Faculty at SJTU (24X010500168). Q.H. and H.D.Z. thank the support from NSF-DMR-2003117. M.F.S thanks the support from Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Extreme Conditions (Grant No. 2023B1212010002). H.W.C. thanks the support from the Collaborative Innovation Program of Hefei Science Center, CAS (Grants No. 2021HSC-KPRD003). This research used resources at the Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The work at Michigan is supported by the Department of Energy under Award No. DE-SC0020184 (magnetic torque analysis). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.