Ultralow-Temperature Thermal Conductivity of the Kitaev Honeycomb Magnet α-RuCl<sub>3</sub> across the Field-Induced Phase Transition

ORAL

Abstract

Recently, there have been increasingly hot debates on whether there exists a quantum spin liquid in the Kitaev honeycomb magnet α-RuCl3 in high magnetic field. To investigate this issue, we perform the ultralow-temperature thermal conductivity measurements on the single crystals of α-RuCl3 down to 80 mK and up to 9 T. Our experiments clearly show a field-induced phase transition occurring at μ0Hc ≈ 7.5 T, above which the magnetic order is completely suppressed. The minimum of thermal conductivity at 7.5 T is attributed to the strong scattering of phonons by the magnetic fluctuations. Most importantly, above 7.5 T, we do not observe any significant contribution of thermal conductivity from gapless magnetic excitations, which puts a strong constraint on the nature of the high-field phase of α-RuCl3 [1].
[1] Y. J. Yu et al., arXiv:1708.04090.

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Presenters

  • Yunjie Yu

    • Fudan Univ
    • State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, and Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Fudan University
    • Fudan University

Authors

  • Yunjie Yu

    • Fudan Univ
    • State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, and Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Fudan University
    • Fudan University

  • Yang Xu

    • Fudan Univ

  • Kejing Ran

    • Nanjing Univ
    • Department of Physics, Nanjing University

  • Jiamin Ni

    • Fudan Univ

  • Yeyu Huang

    • Fudan Univ

  • Jinghui Wang

    • Nanjing Univ

  • Jinsheng Wen

    • National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University
    • Nanjing Univ
    • Department of Physics, Nanjing University
    • Nanjing University

  • Shiyan Li

    • University of Sherbrooke
    • Fudan Univ
    • State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, and Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Fudan University
    • State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Department of Physics, Fudan University
    • Fudan University