Disorder-induced spin-liquid-like behavior in kagome-lattice compounds

Tracking the evolution from isolated dimers to many-body entanglement in NaLu$_x$Yb$_{1-x}$Se$_2$

“…An anomalous peak in the zero-field specific heat is a universal feature of frustrated systems that exhibit no magnetic order. Similar features have been observed to occur regardless of the nature of the spinful object [39][40][41][42], magnetic structure [43] or even dimensionality [44]. The anomalous peak in NaYbSe 2 has variously been interpreted as arising due to strong spin fluctuations [33], correlations between quasi-static spins [27] or simply as a consequence of the TLAF fully frustrated, disordered ground state [24].…”

“…An alternative method of perturbing the system is through doping [45], which in principle allows a tuning of the magnetic correlations. Whilst doping might in-troduce appreciable disorder, we note that this is not necessarily an anathema to the QSL state [43,46]. Upon doping NaYbSe 2 , the anomalous zero-field peak evolves into a well characterised two-level Schottky peak in the dilute system (NaLu 0.9 Yb 0.1 Se 2 ).…”

Dilution of the magnetic lattice in the Kitaev candidate $α$-RuCl$_3$ by Rh$^{3+}$ doping

“…This phase might be present in Ru 1−x Rh x Cl 3 for x * > 0.2 despite the additional interactions J and Γ, however, it would be difficult to identify whether the experimental paramagnetic tail comes from emergent quantum magnetic moments or from localized classical moments. Note that the difficulty to identify quantum spin liquid phases in disordered systems goes beyond the Kitaev model and it was also recently discussed in triangular magnets such as YbMgGaO 4 [7,77] and NaYb 1−x Lu x S 2 [78], in kagome magnets such as Tm 3 M 2 Sb 3 O 14 (M = Mg, Zn) [79] and in double perovskites such as Sr 2 CuW 1−x Te x O 6 [80].…”

Disorder-induced broadening of the spin waves in a triangular-lattice quantum-spin-liquid candidate YbZnGaO$_4$

“…In Ref. 32, we have demonstrated that disorder can induce spin-liquid behaviors in frustrated kagome-lattice compounds Tm 3 Sb 3 Zn 2 O 14 and Tm 3 Sb 3 Mg 2 O 14 . Particularly, in our previous work on YbZnGaO 4 (Ref.…”

“…By introducing geometrical frustration into a low-spin (such as S = 1/2) system to enhance quantum fluctuations, a static magnetic order is avoided 1,2,14 . Consequently, materials with effective spin-1/2 on two-dimensional triangular or kagome lattice with strong geometrical frustration are regarded as compelling platforms to host a QSL state [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] . A QSL phase has also been proposed on a square lattice where strongly competing interactions along different exchange paths are present [33][34][35][36][37] .…”