Freezing of a Disorder Induced Spin Liquid with Strong Quantum Fluctuations.
/ Authors
Xiao Hu, D. Pajerowski, Depei Zhang, A. Podlesnyak, Y. Qiu, Qing Huang, Haidong Zhou, I. Klich, A. Kolesnikov, M. Stone
and 1 more author
/ Abstract
Sr_{2}CuTe_{0.5}W_{0.5}O_{6} is a square-lattice magnet with superexchange between S=1/2Cu^{2+} spins mediated by randomly distributed Te and W ions. Here, using sub-K temperature and 20 μeV energy resolution neutron scattering experiments we show that this system transits from a gapless disorder-induced spin liquid to a new quantum state below T_{f}=1.7(1) K, exhibiting a weak frozen moment of ⟨S⟩/S∼0.1 and low energy dynamic susceptibility, χ^{''}(ℏω), linear in energy which is surprising for such a weak freezing in this highly fluctuating quantum regime.
Journal: Physical review letters