Exeter Stipendiary Lecturer in Physics Hank Wu publishes paper on quantum spin liquids
Stipendiary Lecturer in Physics at Exeter College, Dr Hank Wu, has co‑authored a landmark study in Physical Review Letters demonstrating novel low‑temperature spin dynamics in a promising quantum spin liquid candidate. The article, titled Spin dynamics in the Dirac U(1) spin liquid YbZn₂GaO₅, marks an important advance in condensed matter physics.
In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Oxford’s Department of Physics, Dr Wu and the team focused on YbZn₂GaO₅, a material in which magnetic Yb ions decorate triangular lattice layers. Their experiments, conducted at the Nicholas Kurti High Magnetic Field Laboratory and using the ISIS Pulsed Muon Source, revealed the absence of magnetic ordering at near-zero temperatures, a hallmark of quantum spin liquid behaviour. Using muon spin spectroscopy, the researchers found evidence that YbZn₂GaO5 belongs to a particular type of theoretically predicted Dirac spin liquid.
“A quantum spin liquid is a phase of matter in which electronic spins of atoms remain fluctuating at low temperatures, even at absolute zero , unlike many magnetic materials that orders at some critical temperatures. Our work demonstrated how muons – elementary particles like electrons, can be used to identify quantum spin liquid behaviours, and it lays the foundation for future investigations that would deepen our understanding of these exotic states of matter.” – Dr Hank Wu
For further reading, see the publication in Physical Review Letters.
Magnetic moments arranged in a 2D triangular lattice could evade magnetic ordering and have spin dynamics at very low temperatures
