Chiral spin-liquid-like state in pyrochlore iridate thin films

Abstract

The pyrochlore iridates have become ideal platforms to unravel fascinating correlated and topological phenomena that stem from the intricate interplay among strong spin-orbit coupling, electronic correlations, lattice with geometric frustration, and itinerancy of the 5d electrons. The all-in-all-out antiferromagnetic state, commonly considered as the magnetic ground state, can be dramatically altered in reduced dimensionality, leading to exotic or hidden quantum states inaccessible in bulk. Here, by means of magnetotransport, resonant elastic and inelastic x-ray scattering experiments, we discover an emergent quantum disordered state in (111) Y 2 Ir 2 O 7 thin films (thickness ≤30 nm) persisting down to 5 K, characterized by dispersionless magnetic excitations. The anomalous Hall effect observed below an onset temperature near 125 K corroborates the presence of chiral short-range spin configurations expressed in non-zero scalar spin chirality, breaking the macroscopic time-reversal symmetry. The origin of this chiral state is ascribed to the restoration of magnetic frustration on the pyrochlore lattice in lower dimensionality, where the competing exchange interactions together with enhanced quantum fluctuations suppress any long-range order and trigger spin-liquid-like behavior with degenerate ground-state manifold.