Two-dimensional spin liquid behaviour in the triangular-honeycomb antiferromagnet TbInO$_3$

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a spin liquid state in TbInO3, where anisotropic exchange interactions on an emergent honeycomb lattice lead to highly frustrated magnetic behavior without long-range order.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of a spin liquid in TbInO3 driven by anisotropic exchange interactions and lattice dilution, revealing a new candidate for exotic quantum states.

Findings

Absence of magnetic order at low temperatures in TbInO3

Crystal field induces a triangular-to-honeycomb lattice transition

Evidence for highly frustrated spin liquid behavior

Abstract

Spin liquid ground states are predicted to arise within several distinct scenarios in condensed matter physics. The observation of these disordered magnetic states is particularly pervasive amongst a class of materials known as frustrated magnets, in which the competition between various magnetic exchange interactions prevents the system from adopting long-range magnetic order at low temperatures. Spin liquids continue to be of great interest due to their exotic nature and the possibility that they may support fractionalised excitations, such as Majorana fermions. Systems that allow for such phenomena are not only fascinating from a fundamental perspective but may also be practically significant in future technologies based on quantum computation. Here we show that the underlying antiferromagnetic sublattice in TbInO$_3$ undergoes a crystal field induced triangular-to-honeycomb dilution at low temperatures. The absence of a conventional magnetic ordering transition at the lowest measurable temperatures indicates that another critical mechanism must govern in the ground state selection of TbInO$_3$. We propose that anisotropic exchange interactions, mediated through strong spin-orbit coupling on the emergent honeycomb lattice of TbInO$_3$, give rise to a highly frustrated spin liquid.