Floquet engineering of Kitaev quantum magnets

Umesh Kumar, Saikat Banerjee, Shi Zeng Lin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an intense search for materials realizing the Kitaev quantum spin liquid model. A number of edge-shared compounds with strong spin-orbit coupling, such as RuCl3 and iridates, have been proposed to realize this model. Nevertheless, an effective spin Hamiltonian derived from the microscopic model relevant to these compounds generally contains terms that are antagonistic toward the quantum spin liquid. This is consistent with the fact that the zero magnetic field ground state of these materials is generally magnetically ordered. It is a pressing issue to identify protocols to drive the system to the limit of the Kitaev quantum spin model. In this work, we propose Floquet engineering of these Kitaev quantum magnets by coupling materials to a circularly polarized laser. We demonstrate that all the magnetic interactions can be tuned in situ by the amplitude and frequency of the laser, hence providing a route to stabilize the Kitaev quantum spin liquid phase.

Original languageEnglish
Article number157
JournalCommunications Physics
Volume5
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2022
Externally publishedYes

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