Phonon thermal Hall effect in a metallic spin ice

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that phonons dominate thermal transport and generate the thermal Hall effect in metallic spin ice Pr$_2$Ir$_2$O$_7$, with spin-phonon scattering playing a crucial role in both longitudinal and transverse heat conduction.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence that spin-phonon scattering is essential for understanding the phonon-mediated thermal Hall effect in a metallic spin ice.

Findings

$_{xx}$ and $_{xy}$ are dominated by phonons despite mobile charge carriers.

$T/H$ scaling reveals phonon scattering on paramagnetic spins affects heat conduction.

$_{xy}$ correlates with $_{xx}$, linking transverse and longitudinal thermal responses.

Abstract

It has become common knowledge that phonons can generate thermal Hall effect in a wide variety of materials, although the underlying mechanism is still controversial. We study longitudinal $\kappa_{xx}$ and transverse $\kappa_{xy}$ thermal conductivity in Pr$_2$Ir$_2$O$_7$, which is a metallic analogue of spin ice. Despite the presence of mobile charge carriers, we find that both $\kappa_{xx}$ and $\kappa_{xy}$ are dominated by phonons. A $T/H$ scaling of $\kappa_{xx}$ unambiguously reveals that longitudinal heat current is substantially impeded by resonant scattering of phonons on paramagnetic spins. Upon cooling, the resonant scattering is strongly affected by a development of spin ice correlation and $\kappa_{xx}$ deviates from the scaling in an anisotropic way with respect to field directions. Strikingly, a set of the $\kappa_{xx}$ and $\kappa_{xy}$ data clearly shows that $\kappa_{xy}$ correlates with $\kappa_{xx}$ in its response to magnetic field including a success of the $T/H$ scaling and its failure at low temperature. This remarkable correlation provides solid evidence that an indispensable role is played by spin-phonon scattering not only for hindering the longitudinal heat conduction, but also for generating the transverse response.