Determining the short-range spin correlations in the spin-chain Li2CuO2 and CuGeO3 compounds using resonant inelastic x-ray scattering

We report a high-resolution resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering study of the quantum magnetic spin-chain materials Li(2)CuO(2) and CuGeO(3). By tuning the incoming photon energy to the oxygen K edge, a strong excitation around 3.5 eV energy loss is clearly resolved for both materials. Comparing...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2013-02, Vol.110 (8), p.087403-087403
Main Authors: Monney, Claude, Bisogni, Valentina, Zhou, Ke-Jin, Kraus, Roberto, Strocov, Vladimir N, Behr, Günter, Málek, Jiři, Kuzian, Roman, Drechsler, Stefan-Ludwig, Johnston, Steve, Revcolevschi, Alexandre, Büchner, Bernd, Rønnow, Henrik M, van den Brink, Jeroen, Geck, Jochen, Schmitt, Thorsten
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:We report a high-resolution resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering study of the quantum magnetic spin-chain materials Li(2)CuO(2) and CuGeO(3). By tuning the incoming photon energy to the oxygen K edge, a strong excitation around 3.5 eV energy loss is clearly resolved for both materials. Comparing the experimental data to many-body calculations, we identify this excitation as a Zhang-Rice singlet exciton on neighboring CuO(4) plaquettes. We demonstrate that the strong temperature dependence of the inelastic scattering related to this high-energy exciton enables us to probe short-range spin correlations on the 1 meV scale with outstanding sensitivity.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.087403