Local Excitation of Kagome Spin Ice Magnetism Seen by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Hanbin Deng; Tianyu Yang; Guowei Liu; Lu Liu; Lingxiao Zhao; Wu Wang; Tiantian Li; Wei Song; Titus Neupert; Xiang-Rui Liu; Jifeng Shao; Y. Y. Zhao; Nan Xu; Hao Deng; Li Huang; Yue Zhao; Liyuan Zhang; Jia-Wei Mei; Liusuo Wu; Jiaqing He; Qihang Liu; Chang Liu; Jia-Xin Yin

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.046503

Local Excitation of Kagome Spin Ice Magnetism Seen by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Hanbin Deng ^1,*, Tianyu Yang^1,*, Guowei Liu^1,*, Lu Liu^1,*, Lingxiao Zhao^1,2,*, Wu Wang¹, Tiantian Li^1,3, Wei Song¹, Titus Neupert ⁴ et al.

Xiang-Rui Liu^1,5, Jifeng Shao ⁵, Y. Y. Zhao², Nan Xu⁶, Hao Deng⁷, Li Huang ¹, Yue Zhao^1,5, Liyuan Zhang^1,2, Jia-Wei Mei ^1,5, Liusuo Wu^1,8, Jiaqing He¹, Qihang Liu^1,5,8,†, Chang Liu^1,5, and Jia-Xin Yin ^1,2,‡

¹Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
²Quantum Science Center of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (Guangdong), Shenzhen, China
³Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Advanced Quantum Functional Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China
⁴Department of Physics, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse, Zurich, Switzerland
⁵Shenzhen Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
⁶Institute for Advanced Studies, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
⁷School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China
⁸Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Computational Science and Material Design, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

^*These authors contributed equally to this work.
^†Contact author: liuqh@sustech.edu.cn
^‡Contact author: yinjx@sustech.edu.cn

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 046503 – Published 26 July, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.046503

Abstract

The kagome spin ice can host frustrated magnetic excitations by flipping its local spin. Under an inelastic tunneling condition, the tip in a scanning tunneling microscope can flip the local spin, and we apply this technique to kagome metal HoAgGe with a long-range ordered spin ice ground state. Away from defects, we discover a pair of pronounced dips in the local tunneling spectrum at symmetrical bias voltages with negative intensity values, serving as a striking inelastic tunneling signal. This signal disappears above the spin ice formation temperature and has a dependence on the magnetic fields, demonstrating its intimate relation with the spin ice magnetism. We provide a two-level spin-flip model to explain the tunneling dips considering the spin ice magnetism under spin-orbit coupling. Our results uncover a local emergent excitation of spin ice magnetism in a kagome metal, suggesting that local electrical field induced spin flip climbs over a barrier caused by spin-orbital locking.

Physical Review Letters

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Local Excitation of Kagome Spin Ice Magnetism Seen by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

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Local Excitation of Kagome Spin Ice Magnetism Seen by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

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