Chiral spin-liquid-like state in pyrochlore iridate thin films
The pyrochlore iridates have become ideal platforms to unravel fascinating correlated and topological phenomena that stem from the intricate interplay among strong spin-orbit coupling, electronic correlations, lattice with geometric frustration, and itinerancy of the 5d electrons. The all-in-all-out antiferromagnetic state, commonly considered as the magnetic ground state, can be dramatically altered in reduced dimensionality, leading to exotic or hidden quantum states inaccessible in bulk. Here, by means of magnetotransport, resonant elastic and inelastic x-ray scattering experiments, we discover an emergent quantum disordered state in (111) Y<sub>2</sub>Ir<sub>2</sub>O<sub>7</sub> thin films (thickness ≤30 nm) persisting down to 5 K, characterized by dispersionless magnetic excitations. The anomalous Hall effect observed below an onset temperature near 125 K corroborates the presence of chiral short-range spin configurations expressed in non-zero scalar spin chirality, breaking the macroscopic time-reversal symmetry. The origin of this chiral state is ascribed to the restoration of magnetic frustration on the pyrochlore lattice in lower dimensionality, where the competing exchange interactions together with enhanced quantum fluctuations suppress any long-range order and trigger spin-liquid-like behavior with degenerate ground-state manifold.
Authors
- Yongseong Choi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5790-3129)
- Fangdi Wen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2314-8561)
- Xiaoran Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0938-6109)
- M. H. Upton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9929-0487)
- Yue Cao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3989-158X)
- J. Chakhalian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8168-9441)
- W. Z. Hu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0926-0760)
- D. Haskel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5532-5908)
- Tsung‐Chi Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7551-4650)
- M. Kareev (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-8838-5608)
- H.H. Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5443-2173)
- Hongming Weng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8021-9413)
- Yang Qi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0678-9770)
- Shiyu Peng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4314-0359)
- Michael Terilli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0361-8642)
- Jiandong Guo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7893-022X)
- Philip J. Ryan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5247-349X)
- Yao Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1736-0187)
- Jong‐Woo Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9641-2947)
- Jungho Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4560-6375)
- Xun Jia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3446-4570)
Institutions
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- Boston University (US)
- Argonne National Laboratory (US)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Fudan University (CN)
- FZU ‒ Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (CZ)
- Institute of High Energy Physics (CN)
- Institute of Physics (CN)
- National Laboratory for Superconductivity (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2024-11-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54655-7
- Citations
- 8
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Condensed Matter Physics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.49
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- Vanderbilt University
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- Office of Science
- Basic Energy Sciences
- Argonne National Laboratory