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Spin excitations in quantum spin liquid materials

ORAL · Invited

Abstract

Quantum spin liquids are novel states of matter possessing long range quantum entanglement. An important experimental signature of such a state would be spin excitations that are characterized by fractionalized quantum numbers. For the kagome quantum spin liquid candidate materials Zn-barlowite and herbertsmithite, inelastic scattering and other measurements have provided evidence for the presence of fractionalized spinon excitations. To facilitate the interpretation of the data, it is important to determine the role that impurities and/or structural imperfections might play in the spin excitation spectrum. We discuss recent experimental probes of the excitations and effects of impurities in these materials, including x-ray spectroscopy and resonant inelastic x-ray scatttering measurements in our powder and single crystal samples.

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Publication: 1) Site-specific structure at multiple length scales in kagome quantum spin liquid candidates, R.W. Smaha, I. Boukahil, C. J. Titus, J. M. Jiang, J. P. Sheckelton, W. He, J.-J. Wen, J. Vinson, S. G. Wang, Y.-S. Chen, S. J. Teat, T. P. Devereaux, C. D. Pemmaraju, and Y. S. Lee, Phys. Rev. Materials, 4, 124406 (2020).<br><br>2) High energy spin excitations in the quantum spin liquid candidate Zn-barlowite probed by resonant inelastic x-ray scattering, Rebecca W. Smaha, Jonathan Pelliciari, Ignace Jarrige, Valentina Bisogni, Aaron T. Breidenbach, Jack Mingde Jiang, Jiajia Wen, Hong-Chen Jiang, and Young S. Lee, arXiv:2108.11506.

Presenters

  • Young S Lee

    Stanford Univ, Stanford University

Authors

  • Young S Lee

    Stanford Univ, Stanford University