Evidence for a spinon Fermi surface in a triangular-lattice quantum-spin-liquid candidate

被引：320

作者：

Shen, Yao ^{[1
,2
]}

Li, Yao-Dong ^{[3
]}

Wo, Hongliang ^{[1
,2
]}

Li, Yuesheng ^{[4
]}

Shen, Shoudong ^{[1
,2
]}

Pan, Bingying ^{[1
,2
]}

Wang, Qisi ^{[1
,2
]}

Walker, H. C. ^{[5
]}

Steffens, P. ^{[6
]}

Boehm, M. ^{[6
]}

Hao, Yiqing ^{[1
,2
]}

Quintero-Castro, D. L. ^{[7
]}

Harriger, L. W. ^{[8
]}

Frontzek, M. D. ^{[9
]}

Hao, Lijie ^{[10
]}

Meng, Siqin ^{[10
]}

Zhang, Qingming ^{[4
,11
,12
]}

Chen, Gang ^{[1
,2
,12
,13
]}

Zhao, Jun ^{[1
,2
,12
]}

机构：

[1] Fudan Univ, State Key Lab Surface Phys, Shanghai 200433, Peoples R China

[2] Fudan Univ, Dept Phys, Shanghai 200433, Peoples R China

[3] Fudan Univ, Sch Comp Sci, Shanghai 200433, Peoples R China

[4] Renmin Univ China, Beijing Key Lab Optoelect Funct Mat & Micronano D, Dept Phys, Beijing 100872, Peoples R China

[5] STFC, Rutherford Appleton Lab, ISIS Facil, Didcot OX11 0QX, Oxon, England

[6] Inst Laue Langevin, 71 Ave Martyrs, F-38042 Grenoble 9, France

[7] Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin Mat & Energie, D-14109 Berlin, Germany

[8] NIST, Ctr Neutron Res, Gaithersburg, MD 20899 USA

[9] Oak Ridge Natl Lab, Quantum Condensed Matter Div, Oak Ridge, TN 37831 USA

[10] China Inst Atom Energy, Neutron Scattering Lab, Beijing 102413, Peoples R China

[11] Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ, Dept Phys & Astron, Shanghai 200240, Peoples R China

[12] Collaborat Innovat Ctr Adv Microstruct, Nanjing 210093, Jiangsu, Peoples R China

[13] Fudan Univ, Ctr Field Theory & Particle Phys, Shanghai 200433, Peoples R China

来源：

NATURE | 2016年 / 540卷 / 7634期

基金：

中国国家自然科学基金;

关键词：

VALENCE-BOND STATE; KAGOME-LATTICE; GROUND-STATE; EXCITATIONS; TOPOLOGY; PHYSICS;

D O I：

10.1038/nature20614

中图分类号：

O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];

学科分类号：

07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;

摘要：

A quantum spin liquid is an exotic quantum state of matter in which spins are highly entangled and remain disordered down to zero temperature. Such a state of matter is potentially relevant to high-temperature superconductivity and quantum-information applications, and experimental identification of a quantum spin liquid state is of fundamental importance for our understanding of quantum matter. Theoretical studies have proposed various quantum-spin-liquid ground states1-4, most of which are characterized by exotic spin excitations with fractional quantum numbers (termed 'spinons'). Here we report neutron scattering measurements of the triangular-lattice antiferromagnet YbMgGaO4 that reveal broad spin excitations covering a wide region of the Brillouin zone. The observed diffusive spin excitation persists at the lowest measured energy and shows a clear upper excitation edge, consistent with the particle-hole excitation of a spinon Fermi surface. Our results therefore point to the existence of a quantum spin liquid state with a spinon Fermi surface in YbMgGaO4, which has a perfect spin-1/2 triangular lattice as in the original proposal(4) of quantum spin liquids.

引用

页码：559 / +

页数：13

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