Li\(_2\)RhO\(_3\): A spin-glassy relativistic Mott insulator

Motivated by the rich interplay among electronic correlation, spin-orbit coupling (SOC), crystal-field splitting, and geometric frustrations in the honeycomb-like lattice, we systematically investigated the electronic and magnetic properties of Li\(_2\)RhO\(_3\). The material is semiconducting with...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2013-04
Main Authors: Luo, Yongkang, Cao, Chao, Si, Bingqi, Li, Yuke, Bao, Jinke, Guo, Hanjie, Yang, Xiaojun, Shen, Chenyi, Feng, Chunmu, Dai, Jianhui, Cao, Guanghan, Zhu-an, Xu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Correlation
Crystal lattices
Electron spin
First principles
Freezing
Honeycomb construction
Magnetic properties
Relativism
Relativistic effects
Scaling laws
Spin dynamics
Spin glasses
Spin-orbit interactions
Temperature dependence
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Summary:Motivated by the rich interplay among electronic correlation, spin-orbit coupling (SOC), crystal-field splitting, and geometric frustrations in the honeycomb-like lattice, we systematically investigated the electronic and magnetic properties of Li\(_2\)RhO\(_3\). The material is semiconducting with a narrow band gap of \(\Delta\sim\)78 meV, and its temperature dependence of resistivity conforms to 3D variable range hopping mechanism. No long-range magnetic ordering was found down to 0.5 K, due to the geometric frustrations. Instead, single atomic spin-glass behavior below the spin-freezing temperature (\(\sim\)6 K) was observed and its spin dynamics obeys the universal critical slowing down scaling law. First principle calculations suggested it to be a relativistic Mott insulator mediated by both electronic correlation and SOC. With moderate strength of electronic correlation and SOC, our results shed new light to the research of Heisenberg-Kitaev model in realistic materials.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1303.1235