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Evidence of a spin liquid behavior and confinement-deconfinement transition in Na$_2$IrO$_3$

Zhanybek Alpichshev, Fahad Mahmood, Gang Cao, Nuh Gedik

Published May 8, 2014• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

We use ultrafast optical spectroscopy to observe binding of charged single-particle excitations (SE) in the magnetically frustrated Mott insulator Na$_2$IrO$_3$. Above the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature ($T_N$) the system response is due to both Hubbard excitons (HE) and their constituent unpaired SE. The SE response becomes strongly suppressed immediately below $T_N$. We argue this increase in binding energy is due to a unique interplay between the frustrated Kitaev and the weak Heisenberg-type ordering term in the Hamiltonian, mediating an effective interaction between the spin-singlet SE. This interaction grows with distance causing the SE to become trapped in the HE, similar to quark confinement inside hadrons. This binding of charged particles, induced by magnetic ordering, is a result of a confinement-deconfinement transition of spinons and chargons. This observation provides an evidence for spin liquid behavior which is expected in Na$_2$IrO$_3$.

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Evidence of a spin liquid behavior and confinement-deconfinement transition in Na2_22​IrO3_33​
We use ultrafast optical spectroscopy to observe binding of charged single-particle excitations (SE) in the magnetically frustrated Mott insulator Na2_22​IrO3_33​. Above the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature (TNT_NTN​) the system response is due to both Hubbard excitons (HE) and their constituent unpaired SE. The SE response becomes strongly suppressed immediately below TNT_NTN​. We argue this increase in binding energy is due to a unique interplay between the frustrated Kitaev and the weak Heisenberg-type ordering term in the Hamiltonian, mediating an effective interaction between the spin-singlet SE. This interaction grows with distance causing the SE to become trapped in the HE, similar to quark confinement inside hadrons. This binding of charged particles, induced by magnetic ordering, is a result of a confinement-deconfinement transition of spinons and chargons. This observation provides an evidence for spin liquid behavior which is expected in Na2_22​IrO3_33​.
We use ultrafast optical spectroscopy to observe binding of charged single-particle excitations (SE) in the magnetically frustrated Mott insulator Na[subscript 2]IrO[subscript 3]. Above the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature (T[subscript N]) the system response is due to both Hubbard excitons (HE) and their constituent unpaired SE. The SE response becomes strongly suppressed immediately below (T[subscript N]). We argue that this increase in binding energy is due to a unique interplay between the frustrated Kitaev and the weak Heisenberg-type ordering term in the Hamiltonian, mediating an effective interaction between the spin-singlet SE. This interaction grows with distance causing the SE to become trapped in the HE, similar to quark confinement inside hadrons. This binding of charged particles, induced by magnetic ordering, is a result of a confinement-deconfinement transition of spin excitations. This observation provides evidence for spin liquid type behavior which is expected in Na[subscript 2]IrO[subscript 3].
We use ultrafast optical spectroscopy to observe binding of charged single-particle excitations (SE) in the magnetically frustrated Mott insulator Na(2)IrO(3). Above the antiferromagnetic ordering temperature (T(N)) the system response is due to both Hubbard excitons (HE) and their constituent unpaired SE. The SE response becomes strongly suppressed immediately below T(N). We argue that this increase in binding energy is due to a unique interplay between the frustrated Kitaev and the weak Heisenberg-type ordering term in the Hamiltonian, mediating an effective interaction between the spin-singlet SE. This interaction grows with distance causing the SE to become trapped in the HE, similar to quark confinement inside hadrons. This binding of charged particles, induced by magnetic ordering, is a result of a confinement-deconfinement transition of spin excitations. This observation provides evidence for spin liquid type behavior which is expected in Na(2)IrO(3).
We use a three-pulse ultrafast optical spectroscopy to study the relaxation processes in a frustrated Mott insulator Na[subscript 2]IrO[subscript 3]. By being able to independently produce the out-of-equilibrium bound states (excitons) of doublons and holons with the first pulse and suppress the underlying antiferromagnetic order with the second one, we were able to elucidate the relaxation mechanism of quasiparticles in this system. By observing the difference in the exciton dynamics in the magnetically ordered and disordered phases we found that the mass of this quasiparticle is mostly determined by its interaction with the surrounding spins.
Mott insulators with localized magnetic moments will exhibit a quantum spin liquid state when the quantum fluctuations are strong enough to suppress the ordering of the spins. Such an entangled state will give rise to collective excitations, in which spin and charge information are carried separately. Our angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements on single-layer 1T-TaS_{2} show a flat band around the zone center and a gap opening of about 200 meV in the low temperature, indicating 2D Mott insulating nature in the system. This flat band is dispersionless in momentum space but shows anomalously broad width around the zone center and the spectral weight decays rapidly as momentum increases. The observation is described as a spectral continuum from electron fractionalization, corroborated by a low energy effective model. The intensity of the flat band is reduced by surface doping with magnetic adatoms and the gap is closing, a result from the interaction between spin impurities coupled with spinons and the chargons, which gives rise to a charge redistribution. Doping with nonmagnetic impurities behaves differently as the chemical potential shift dominates. These findings provide insight into the quantum spin liquid states of strongly correlated electrons on 2D triangular lattices.
Tuning into the Kitaev spin liquid phase from a new perspective in Li2_22​IrO3_33​
We study a spin model on honeycomb lattice with two types of Heisenberg exchange couplings, JJJ and J~\tilde JJ~, where JJJ is for the conventional spin and and J~\tilde JJ~ for rotated spin. When J~=0\tilde J=0J~=0, this is the conventional Heisenberg model. When J=0, the system is either in a stripy antiferromagnetic order(J~0\tilde J 0J~0, antiferromagnetic for rotated spin). The competition between two ferromagnetic orders or two antiferromagnetic orders induces Kitaev's spin liquid phase characterized by the exactly solvable Kitaev model (J=J~J=\tilde JJ=J~). Our model can be applied to layered Mott insulators A2_22​IrO3_33​ (A=Li, Na). For a monolayer of Li2_22​IrO3_33​, we show that it is possible to tune the controlling parameter into the Kitaev spin liquid regime by a link-dependent Rashba spin-orbital coupling.
The magnetic-field response of the Mott-insulating honeycomb iridate Na2IrO3{\mathrm{Na}}_{2}{\mathrm{IrO}}_{3}Na2​IrO3​ is investigated using torque magnetometry measurements in magnetic fields up to 60 T. A peak-dip structure is observed in the torque response at magnetic fields corresponding to an energy scale close to the zigzag ordering ($\ensuremath{\approx}15\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$) temperature. Using exact diagonalization calculations, we show that such a distinctive signature in the torque response constrains the effective spin models for these classes of Kitaev materials to ones with dominant ferromagnetic Kitaev interactions, while alternative models with dominant antiferromagnetic Kitaev interactions are excluded. We further show that, at high magnetic fields, long range spin correlation functions decay rapidly, pointing to a transition to a long-sought-after field-induced quantum spin liquid beyond the peak-dip structure, suggesting this to be a common feature of the family of Kitaev systems. Kitaev systems are thus revealed to be excellent candidates for field-induced quantum spin liquids, similar physics having been suggested in another Kitaev system $\ensuremath{\alpha}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathrm{RuCl}}_{3}$.