Freezing of a Disorder Induced Spin Liquid with Strong Quantum Fluctuations

Published

June 29, 2021

Author(s)

Xiao Hu, Daniel M. Pajerowski, Depei Zhang, Andrey Podlesnyak, Yiming Qiu, Qing Huang, Haidong Zhou, Israel Klich, Alexander I. Kolesnikov, M. B. Stone, Seung-Hun Lee

Abstract

Sr₂CuTe_0.5W_0.5O₆ is a square-lattice magnet with super-exchange between S = 1/2 Cu²⁺ spins mediated by randomly distributed Te and W ions. Here, using sub-K temperature and 20 µeV energy resolution neutron scattering experiments we show that this system transits from a gapless disorder-induced quantum spin liquid to a new quantum state below T_f = 1.7(1) K, exhibiting a weak frozen moment of (s)/S 0.1 and low energy dynamic susceptibility, X"(ħω), linear in energy which is surprising for such a weak freezing in this highly fluctuating quantum regime.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

127

Issue

1

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

quantum spin liquid, quantum spin jam, neutron scattering

Citation

Hu, X. , Pajerowski, D. , Zhang, D. , Podlesnyak, A. , Qiu, Y. , Huang, Q. , Zhou, H. , Klich, I. , Kolesnikov, A. , Stone, M. and Lee, S. (2021), Freezing of a Disorder Induced Spin Liquid with Strong Quantum Fluctuations, Physical Review Letters (Accessed October 31, 2024)