Disorder-induced quantum spin liquid in scandium-doped spin ice
Quantum spin liquids have been elusive experimentally, in part because disorder induces competing glassy states instead of entangled ones. Here we are testing the theoretical proposal that the archetypal classical spin ice material holmium titanate can be tuned through the controlled introduction of structural disorder to a quantum spin liquid phase with long-range entanglement. The diffuse scattering from large single crystals of scandium-doped holmium titanate will be measured using uniaxial polarisation analysis on D7 at millikelvin temperatures. It will be possible to determine the defect structures using the structural diffuse scattering in the non-spin-flip channel and this will enable the single-ion ground state properties of holmium to be determined at defective sites. The spin correlations in the spin-flip channel will then be compared directly with classical spin ice and with simulations. Two samples with very different compositions allow us to explore different regions of the phase diagram.
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GOFF Jonathan P.; CASTELNOVO Claudio; MANGIN-THRO Lucile; NORTHAM DE LA FUENTE Tomas Stephen; PRABHAKARAN Dharmalingam; REFSON Keith and WILDES Andrew. (2020). Disorder-induced quantum spin liquid in scandium-doped spin ice. Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) doi:10.5291/ILL-DATA.5-42-506
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