Incommensurate counterrotating magnetic order stabilized by Kitaev interactions in the layered honeycomb [alpha]-Li[subscript 2] IrO[Subscript 3]
Name
PhysRevB.93.195158.pdf
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Author(s)
Williams, S. C.
Johnson, R. D.
Freund, F.
Choi, Sungkyun
Jesche, A.
Kimchi, Itamar
Manni, S.
Bombardi, A.
Manuel, P.
Gegenwart, P.
Alternative Title
Incommensurate counterrotating magnetic order stabilized by Kitaev interactions in the layered honeycomb α−Li2IrO3
Date Issued
May 2016
Journal
Physical Review B
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Williams, S. C., R. D. Johnson, F. Freund, Sungkyun Choi, A. Jesche, I. Kimchi, S. Manni, A. Bombardi, P. Manuel, P. Gegenwart, and R. Coldea. Phys. Rev. B 93, 195158 (2016). ©2016 American Physical Society.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The layered honeycomb magnet α-Li_{2}IrO_{3} has been theoretically proposed as a candidate to display unconventional magnetic behaviour associated with Kitaev interactions between spin-orbit entangled j_{eff}=1/2 magnetic moments on a honeycomb lattice. Here we report single crystal magnetic resonant x-ray diffraction combined with powder magnetic neutron diffraction to reveal an incommensurate magnetic order in the honeycomb layers with Ir magnetic moments counterrotating on nearest-neighbor sites. This unexpected type of magnetic structure for a honeycomb magnet cannot be explained by a spin Hamiltonian with dominant isotropic (Heisenberg) couplings. The magnetic structure shares many key features with the magnetic order in the structural polytypes β- and γ-Li_{2}IrO_{3}, understood theoretically to be stabilized by dominant Kitaev interactions between Ir moments located on the vertices of three-dimensional hyperhoneycomb and stripyhoneycomb lattices, respectively. Based on this analogy and a theoretical soft-spin analysis of magnetic ground states for candidate spin Hamiltonians, we propose that Kitaev interactions also dominate in α-Li_{2}IrO_{3}, indicative of universal Kitaev physics across all three members of the harmonic honeycomb family of Li_{2}IrO_{3} polytypes.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.195158
