Spin-Induced Optical Conductivity in the Spin-Liquid Candidate Herbertsmithite
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Pilon-2013-Spin-induced optical.pdf
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Author(s)
Han, Tianheng
Shrekenhamer, D.
Padilla, W. J.
Pilon, Daniel Victor
Lui, Chun Hung
Frenzel, Alex James
Lee, Young S.
Gedik, Nuh
Date Issued
September 2013
Journal
Physical Review Letters
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Pilon, D. V. et al. “Spin-Induced Optical Conductivity in the Spin-Liquid Candidate Herbertsmithite.” Physical Review Letters 111.12 (2013): n. pag. © 2013 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We report a direct measurement of the low-frequency optical conductivity of large-area single-crystal herbertsmithite, a promising spin-liquid candidate material, by means of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. In the spectral range below 1.4 THz, we observe a contribution to the real part of the in-plane conductivity σ[subscript ab](ω) from the spin degree of freedom. This spin-induced conductivity exhibits a power-law dependence on frequency σ[subscript ab](ω) ~ ω[superscript β] with β ≈ 1.4. Our observation is consistent with the theoretically predicted low-frequency conductivity arising from an emergent gauge field of a gapless U(1) Dirac spin liquid.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.127401
