Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kasahara, Y
• Sugii, K
• Ohnishi, T
• Shimozawa, M
• Yamashita, M
• Kurita, N
• Tanaka, H
• Nasu, J
• Motome, Y
• Shibauchi, T
• Matsuda, Y

Titel

Unusual Thermal Hall Effect in a Kitaev Spin Liquid Candidate α−RuCl3

Ist Teil von

• Physical review letters, 2018-05, Vol.120 (21)

Ort / Verlag

College Park: American Physical Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2018

Quelle

American Physical Society

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Kitaev quantum spin liquid displays the fractionalization of quantum spins into Majorana fermions. The emergent Majorana edge current is predicted to manifest itself in the form of a finite thermal Hall effect, a feature commonly discussed in topological superconductors. Here we report on thermal Hall conductivity κxy measurements in α−RuCl3, a candidate Kitaev magnet with the two-dimensional honeycomb lattice. In a spin-liquid (Kitaev paramagnetic) state below the temperature characterized by the Kitaev interaction JK/kB∼80 K, positive κxy develops gradually upon cooling, demonstrating the presence of highly unusual itinerant excitations. Although the zero-temperature property is masked by the magnetic ordering at TN=7 K, the sign, magnitude, and T dependence of κxy/T at intermediate temperatures follows the predicted trend of the itinerant Majorana excitations.