Iyoite, MnCuCl(OH)3 and misakiite, Cu3Mn(OH)6Cl2: new members of the atacamite family from Sadamisaki Peninsula, Ehime Prefecture, Japan
Topological triplon modes and bound states in a Shastry–Sutherland magnet
Abstract:
The twin discoveries of the quantum Hall effect1, in the 1980s, and of topological band insulators2, in the 2000s, were landmarks in physics that enriched our view of the electronic properties of solids. In a nutshell, these discoveries have tau ght us that quantum mechanical wavefunctions in crystalline solids may carry nontrivial topological invariants which have ramifications for the observable physics. One of the side effects of the recent topological insulator revolution has been that such physics is much more widespread than was appreciated ten years ago. For example, while topological insulators were originally studied in the context of electron wavefunctions, recent work has initiated a hunt for topological insulators in bosonic systems: in photonic crystals3-6, in the vibrational modes of crystals7, and in the excitations of ordered magnets8. Using inelastic neutron scattering along with theoretical calculations, we demonstrate that, in a weak magnetic field, the dimerized quantum magnet SrCu 2 (BO 3 ) 2 is a bosonic topological insulator with topologically protected chiral edge modes of triplon excitations.Weak ferromagnetic order breaking the threefold rotational symmetry of the underlying kagomé lattice in CdCu$_3$(OH)$_6$(NO$_3$)$_2\cdot$H$_2$O
Weak ferromagnetic order breaking the threefold rotational symmetry of the underlying kagome lattice in CdCu3(OH)6(NO3)2·H2O
Magnetic field dependence of excitations near spin-orbital quantum criticality
Abstract:
The spinel FeSc2S4 has been proposed to realize a near-critical spin-orbital singlet (SOS) state, where entangled spin and orbital moments fluctuate in a global singlet state on the verge of spin and orbital order. Here we report powder inelastic neutron scattering measurements that observe the full bandwidth of magnetic excitations and we find that spin-orbital triplon excitations of an SOS state can capture well key aspects of the spectrum in both zero and applied magnetic fields up to 8.5 T. The observed shift of low-energy spectral weight to higher energies upon increasing applied field is naturally explained by the entangled spin-orbital character of the magnetic states, a behavior that is in strong contrast to spin-only singlet ground state systems, where the spin gap decreases upon increasing applied field.