Magnetic excitations in biaxial-strain detwinned $α$-RuCl$_{3}$
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866916939907989504 |
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| author | Li, Yi Shangguan, Yanyan Wang, Xinzhe Liu, Ruixian Liu, Chang Han, Yongqi Wang, Zhaosheng Balz, Christian Stewart, Ross Yu, Shun-Li Wen, Jinsheng Li, Jian-Xin Lu, Xingye |
| author_facet | Li, Yi Shangguan, Yanyan Wang, Xinzhe Liu, Ruixian Liu, Chang Han, Yongqi Wang, Zhaosheng Balz, Christian Stewart, Ross Yu, Shun-Li Wen, Jinsheng Li, Jian-Xin Lu, Xingye |
| contents | The honeycomb magnet $α$-RuCl$_{3}$ has been a leading candidate for realizing the Kitaev quantum spin liquid (QSL), but its intrinsic spin dynamics have remained obscured by crystal twinning. Here we apply biaxial anisotropic strain to detwin $α$-RuCl$_{3}$ single crystals and directly visualize the intrinsic magnetic excitations using inelastic neutron scattering. We discover that the low-energy spin waves emerge from the $M$ points -- transverse to the magnetic Bragg peaks -- providing direct evidence of anisotropic magnetic interactions in $α$-RuCl$_{3}$. The intrinsic spin-wave spectrum imposes stringent constraints on the extended Kitaev Hamiltonian, yielding a refined, quantitatively consistent set of exchange couplings for the zigzag ground state and its low-energy dynamics. Above the magnon band, we uncover broad excitation continua: while a twofold-symmetric feature near 6 meV at $Γ$ is consistent with bimagnon scattering, the dominant spectral weight forms a sixfold-symmetric continuum extending up to $\sim 16$ meV that cannot be explained by conventional magnons. This strongly supports the presence of fractionalized excitations-a hallmark of Kitaev QSL physics. Our findings establish biaxial strain as a powerful symmetry-breaking probe to access the intrinsic spin dynamics of Kitaev materials and provide critical benchmarks for refining theoretical models of quantum magnetism in $α$-RuCl$_{3}$. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_06753 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Magnetic excitations in biaxial-strain detwinned $α$-RuCl$_{3}$ Li, Yi Shangguan, Yanyan Wang, Xinzhe Liu, Ruixian Liu, Chang Han, Yongqi Wang, Zhaosheng Balz, Christian Stewart, Ross Yu, Shun-Li Wen, Jinsheng Li, Jian-Xin Lu, Xingye Strongly Correlated Electrons The honeycomb magnet $α$-RuCl$_{3}$ has been a leading candidate for realizing the Kitaev quantum spin liquid (QSL), but its intrinsic spin dynamics have remained obscured by crystal twinning. Here we apply biaxial anisotropic strain to detwin $α$-RuCl$_{3}$ single crystals and directly visualize the intrinsic magnetic excitations using inelastic neutron scattering. We discover that the low-energy spin waves emerge from the $M$ points -- transverse to the magnetic Bragg peaks -- providing direct evidence of anisotropic magnetic interactions in $α$-RuCl$_{3}$. The intrinsic spin-wave spectrum imposes stringent constraints on the extended Kitaev Hamiltonian, yielding a refined, quantitatively consistent set of exchange couplings for the zigzag ground state and its low-energy dynamics. Above the magnon band, we uncover broad excitation continua: while a twofold-symmetric feature near 6 meV at $Γ$ is consistent with bimagnon scattering, the dominant spectral weight forms a sixfold-symmetric continuum extending up to $\sim 16$ meV that cannot be explained by conventional magnons. This strongly supports the presence of fractionalized excitations-a hallmark of Kitaev QSL physics. Our findings establish biaxial strain as a powerful symmetry-breaking probe to access the intrinsic spin dynamics of Kitaev materials and provide critical benchmarks for refining theoretical models of quantum magnetism in $α$-RuCl$_{3}$. |
| title | Magnetic excitations in biaxial-strain detwinned $α$-RuCl$_{3}$ |
| topic | Strongly Correlated Electrons |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06753 |