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Magnetic Ground State of the Kitaev Na2Co2TeO6 Spin Liquid Candidate
Published
Author(s)
Weiliang Yao, Yang Zhao, Yiming Qiu, Christian Balz, Ross Stewart, Jeffrey Lynn, Yuan Li
Abstract
As a candidate Kitaev material, Na2Co2TeO6 exhibits intriguing magnetism on a honeycomb lattice that is believed to be C3-symmetric. Here we report a neutron diffraction study of its high-quality single crystals under a-axis magnetic fields. While fields up to 10 Tesla suppress long-range antiferromagnetic order by causing appreciable spin polarization, the suppression is only incomplete, and the system recovers to its original state upon removal of the field, only losing some subtle c-axis correlations. The high-field state is thus not yet a spin liquid. Given the nominal C3 symmetry, the failure of the field to repopulate magnetic domains leaves only two possibilities open: either the domains are pinned by the lattice if they both in fact lack C3 symmetry, or they both have C3 symmetry. The latter scenario, if true, invokes rethinking about many candidate Kitaev materials.
Yao, W.
, Zhao, Y.
, Qiu, Y.
, Balz, C.
, Stewart, R.
, Lynn, J.
and Li, Y.
(2023),
Magnetic Ground State of the Kitaev Na<sub>2</sub>Co<sub>2</sub>TeO<sub>6</sub> Spin Liquid Candidate, Physical Review Research, [online], https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.L022045
(Accessed October 13, 2025)