Kitaev magnetism through the prism of lithium iridate

TL;DR

This paper reviews the progress in understanding lithium iridate as a realization of Kitaev magnetism, exploring its polymorphs, interactions, and tuning strategies like pressure and chemical substitution.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of lithium iridate's properties, polymorphs, and methods to tune Kitaev interactions, highlighting recent advances and future directions.

Findings

Lithium iridate exhibits strong Kitaev interactions across different polymorphs.

External pressure and chemical substitutions can effectively tune magnetic properties.

The study discusses the potential for realizing quantum spin liquids in lithium iridate.

Abstract

Fifteen years since its inception, the Kitaev model still boasts only a narrow group of material realizations. We review the progress in studying and understanding one of them, lithium iridate Li$_2$IrO$_3$ available in three polymorphs that host strong Kitaev interactions on spin lattices of different dimensionality and topology. We also discuss feasibility, effectiveness, and repercussions of tuning strategies based on the application of external pressure and chemical substitutions.