Field-induced quantum criticality in the Kitaev system α−RuCl3

α−RuCl3 has attracted enormous attention since it has been proposed as a prime candidate to study fractionalized magnetic excitations akin to Kitaev's honeycomb-lattice spin liquid. We have performed a detailed specific-heat investigation at temperatures down to 0.4K in applied magnetic fields...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Physical review. B 2017-07, Vol.96 (4)
Hauptverfasser: Wolter, A U B, Corredor, L T, Janssen, L, Nenkov, K, Schönecker, S, Do, S-H, Choi, K-Y, Albrecht, R, Hunger, J, Doert, T, Vojta, M, Büchner, B
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Volltext
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:α−RuCl3 has attracted enormous attention since it has been proposed as a prime candidate to study fractionalized magnetic excitations akin to Kitaev's honeycomb-lattice spin liquid. We have performed a detailed specific-heat investigation at temperatures down to 0.4K in applied magnetic fields up to 9T for fields parallel to the ab plane. We find a suppression of the zero-field antiferromagnetic order, together with an increase of the low-temperature specific heat, with increasing field up to μ0Hc≈6.9 T. Above Hc, the magnetic contribution to the low-temperature specific heat is strongly suppressed, implying the opening of a spin-excitation gap. Our data point toward a field-induced quantum critical point at Hc; this is supported by universal scaling behavior near Hc. Remarkably, the data also reveal the existence of a small characteristic energy scale well below 1 meV, above which the excitation spectrum changes qualitatively. We relate the data to theoretical calculations based on a J1−K1−Γ1−J3 honeycomb model.
ISSN:2469-9950
2469-9969
2469-9969
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.96.041405