Anisotropic Softening of Magnetic Excitations in Lightly Electron-Doped Sr₂IrO₄

Authors

X. Liu, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
M. P. M. Dean, Brookhaven National Laboratory
Z. Y. Meng, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
M. H. Upton, Argonne National Laboratory
T. Qi, University of Kentucky
T. Gog, Argonne National Laboratory
Y. Cao, Brookhaven National Laboratory
J. Q. Lin, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
D. Meyers, Brookhaven National Laboratory
H. Ding, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Gang Cao, University of KentuckyFollow
J. P. Hill, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Abstract

The magnetic excitations in electron-doped (Sr_1−xLa_x)₂IrO₄ with x = 0.03 were measured using resonant inelastic x-ray scattering at the Ir L₃ edge. Although much broadened, well defined dispersive magnetic excitations were observed. Comparing with the magnetic dispersion from the undoped compound, the evolution of the magnetic excitations upon doping is highly anisotropic. Along the antinodal direction, the dispersion is almost intact. On the other hand, the magnetic excitations along the nodal direction show significant softening. These results establish the presence of strong magnetic correlations in electron-doped (Sr_1−xLa_x)₂IrO₄ with close analogies to the hole-doped cuprates, further motivating the search for high temperature superconductivity in this system.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-10-2016

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Physical Review B, v. 93, issue 24, 241102, p. 1-5.

©2016 American Physical Society

The copyright holder has granted permission for posting the article here.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.93.241102

Funding Information

X.L. acknowledges financial support from MOST (No. 2015CB921302) and CAS (Grant No. XDB07020200) of China. Z.Y.M. is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 11421092 and No. 11574359). Both X.L. and Z.Y.M. are supported by the National Thousand Young-Talents Program of China. The work at Brookhaven was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Division of Materials Science, under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886. The work at the University of Kentucky was supported by NSF through Grant No. DMR-1265162. Use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

Related Content

The resistivity and magnetization data for our 3% doped (Sr1-xLax)2IrO4 sample, and the additional RIXS data for our undoped sample are provided in the Supplemental Material.

Repository Citation

Liu, X.; Dean, M. P. M.; Meng, Z. Y.; Upton, M. H.; Qi, T.; Gog, T.; Cao, Y.; Lin, J. Q.; Meyers, D.; Ding, H.; Cao, Gang; and Hill, J. P., "Anisotropic Softening of Magnetic Excitations in Lightly Electron-Doped Sr₂IrO₄" (2016). Center for Advanced Materials Faculty Publications. 7.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/cam_facpub/7