Neutron scattering study of Na₂Co₂TeO₆ single crystals

Spin-orbital entangled Mott insulators have been focused to search for the novel Kitaev physics in real magnets. Recently d⁷ high-spin compounds have become a new platform to realize the spin-anisotropic exchange interaction after many years of studies on the d⁵ cases [1,2]. With d⁷ Co²⁺ ion, Na₂Co₂TeO₆ is regarded as one of the promising candidate materials [1] and it was experimentally found to exhibit some resemblances[3] to the famous α-RuCl₃. To further understand the magnetic interactions in this compound, we have performed inelastic neutron scattering experiments on Na₂Co₂TeO₆ single crystals. In this talk, we will present its magnetic excitation spectrum and make the comparison to other honeycomb magnets, in order to assess the prominence of Kitaev physics in this system.

[1] Liu et al., Phys. Rev. B 97, 014407 (2018).
[2] Sano et al., Phys. Rev. B 97, 014408 (2018).
[3] Yao et al., Phys. Rev. B 101, 085120 (2020).