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Title: Highly anisotropic exchange interactions of j eff = 1 2 iridium moments on the fcc lattice in La 2 B IrO 6   ( B = Mg , Zn )

Journal Article · · Physical Review B
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [5]
  1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Quantum Condensed Matter Division
  2. Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada)
  3. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Materials Science & Technology Division
  4. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Materials Science & Technology Division; Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
  5. Univ. of Toronto, ON (Canada); Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, ON (Canada)

Here we have performed inelastic neutron scattering (INS) experiments to investigate the magnetic excitations in the weakly distorted face-centered-cubic (fcc) iridate double perovskites La$$_2$$ZnIrO$$_6$$ and La$$_2$$MgIrO$$_6$$, which are characterized by A-type antiferromagnetic ground states. The powder inelastic neutron scattering data on these geometrically frustrated $$j_{\rm eff}=1/2$$ Mott insulators provide clear evidence for gapped spin wave excitations with very weak dispersion. The INS results and thermodynamic data on these materials can be reproduced by conventional Heisenberg-Ising models with significant uniaxial Ising anisotropy and sizeable second-neighbor ferromagnetic interactions. Such a uniaxial Ising exchange interaction is symmetry-forbidden on the ideal fcc lattice, so that it can only arise from the weak crystal distortions away from the ideal fcc limit. This may suggest that even weak distortions in $$j_{\rm eff}=1/2$$ Mott insulators might lead to strong exchange anisotropies. More tantalizingly, however, we find an alternative viable explanation of the INS results in terms of spin models with a dominant Kitaev interaction. In contrast to the uniaxial Ising exchange, the highly-directional Kitaev interaction is a type of exchange anisotropy which is symmetry-allowed even on the ideal fcc lattice. The Kitaev model has a magnon gap induced by quantum order-by-disorder, while weak anisotropies of the Kitaev couplings generated by the symmetry-lowering due to lattice distortions can pin the order and enhance the magnon gap. In conclusion, our findings highlight how even conventional magnetic orders in heavy transition metal oxides may be driven by highly-directional exchange interactions rooted in strong spin-orbit coupling.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Spallation Neutron Source (SNS)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1260071
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1258298
Journal Information:
Physical Review B, Vol. 93, Issue 21; ISSN 2469-9950
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 28 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (8)

Weak ferromagnetic insulator with huge coercivity in monoclinic double perovskite La 2 CuIrO 6 journal July 2019
Spin-orbit entangled j = 1 2 moments in Ba 2 CeIrO 6 : A frustrated fcc quantum magnet journal August 2019
Kitaev magnetism and fractionalized excitations in double perovskite S m 2 ZnIr O 6 journal January 2020
Kitaev materials beyond iridates: order by quantum disorder and Weyl magnons in rare-earth double perovskites text January 2016
Hidden multipolar orders of dipole-octupole doublets on a triangular lattice text January 2016
Models and Materials for Generalized Kitaev Magnetism text January 2017
Weak ferromagnetic insulator with huge coercivity in monoclinic double perovskite La2CuIrO6 text January 2019
Kitaev-like honeycomb magnets: Global phase behavior and emergent effective models text January 2019