Fig. 3: Low-temperature zigzag order and intermediate-T fractional liquid regime under in-plane fields \({H}_{[11\bar{2}]}\parallel {\bf{a}}\).
From: Identification of magnetic interactions and high-field quantum spin liquid in α-RuCl3
![Fig. 3: Low-temperature zigzag order and intermediate-T fractional liquid regime under in-plane fields
$${H}_{[11\bar{2}]}\parallel {\bf{a}}$$
H
[
11
2
¯
]
∥
a
.](http://media.springernature.com/full/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41467-021-24257-8/MediaObjects/41467_2021_24257_Fig3_HTML.png?as=webp)
a Surface plot of the M-point spin structure factor S(M) (average over six M points in the BZ) vs. temperature T and field \({H}_{[11\bar{2}]}\). The inset is a low-T structure factor with six bright M points in the BZ, representing the zigzag order. The S(M) curve and its derivative over T and \({H}_{[11\bar{2}]}\) are shown in (b) and (c), respectively, which indicate a suppression of zigzag order at around the temperature Tc ≃ 7 K and field \({h}_{[11\bar{2}]}^{c}\simeq 7\) T. d Shows the emergent Curie-Weiss behavior in the magnetic susceptibility at intermediate T, with the fitted \(C^{\prime} \simeq\) 1.17, 1.20, 1.21, and 1.27 cm3 K/mol and \(\theta ^{\prime} \simeq\) −20.7, −24.2, −26, and −34.4 K for fields \({\mu }_{0}{H}_{[11\bar{2}]}=\) 2.1, 6.3, 8.5 and 11.6 T, respectively. The different χ curves under various fields are shifted vertically by 0.018 emu/mol for clarify. The bright stripes of spin-resolved magnetic structure factors, i.e., Sxx(k), Syy(k), and Szz(k) as shown in (e), (f), (g), respectively, calculated at \({\mu }_{0}{H}_{[11\bar{2}]}=4.2\) T and T = 10.6 K, rotate counterclockwise (by 120∘) as the spin component switches, reflecting the peculiar bond-oriented spin correlations in the intermediate fractional liquid regime.
