"The observation of a quantum disordered ground state in a triangular lattice magnet"
Magnetic materials with a triangular lattice are the focus of numerous research studies. Theoretical predictions suggest that they may exhibit spin-liquid states.
"Researchers at University of California, Boston College, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology were recently able to produce a quantum disordered ground state in the triangular lattice-magnet NaRuO2. Their findings, published in Nature Physics, suggest that this state was enabled by the cooperative interplay between spin-orbit coupling and correlation effects in the magnetic material.
'We have been studying triangular lattices for a long time, searching for materials that host what we call quantum disordered ground states," Stephen D. Wilson, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. "These are states where the magnetic moments on each atom, each sitting within a network of edge-sharing triangles, fail to order or freeze into place even at absolute zero. This failure to order is nominally due to quantum fluctuations which continuously scramble the moments and serve to define a new, intrinsically disordered and dynamic magnetic ground state.'"
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