Abstract
Spirals and helices are common motifs of long-range order in magnetic solids, and they may also be organized into more complex emergent structures such as magnetic skyrmions and vortices. A new type of spiral state, the spiral spin-liquid, in which spins fluctuate collectively as spirals, has recently been predicted to exist. Here, using neutron scattering techniques, we experimentally prove the existence of a spiral spin-liquid in MnSc2S4 by directly observing the ‘spiral surface’—a continuous surface of spiral propagation vectors in reciprocal space. We elucidate the multi-step ordering behaviour of the spiral spin-liquid, and discover a vortex-like triple-q phase on application of a magnetic field. Our results prove the effectiveness of the J1–J2 Hamiltonian on the diamond lattice as a model for the spiral spin-liquid state in MnSc2S4, and also demonstrate a new way to realize a magnetic vortex lattice through frustrated interactions.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge helpful discussions with L. Balents, B. Normand, J. H. Chen, A. Scaramucci, A. Cervellino, S. Tóth, S. Ward and M. Ruminy. Our neutron scattering experiments were performed at the Swiss Spallation Neutron Source SINQ, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland, the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum MLZ, Garching, Germany, and the Institut Laue-Langevin ILL, Grenoble, France. The magnetization measurements were carried out in the Laboratory for Scientific Developments and Novel Materials, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under Grants Nos 200021-140862 and 200020-162626, and the SCOPES project No. IZ73Z0-152734/1. Our work was additionally supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) through a CRG-grant and via the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft by the Transregional Collaborative Research Center TRR 80.
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O.Z. and C.R. designed and supervised the project. V.T. prepared the single crystals. S.G. and O.Z. performed the experiments with Y.S. as the local contact for DNS, J.S.W. and G.S.T. for TASP, B.R. for MuPAD, F.B. for CRYOPAD, D.C. for SNBL, and R.S. for the SQUID measurements. S.G. and O.Z. performed the calculations and analysed the data. The manuscript was written by S.G., O.Z., T.F. and C.R., with input from all co-authors.
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Gao, S., Zaharko, O., Tsurkan, V. et al. Spiral spin-liquid and the emergence of a vortex-like state in MnSc2S4. Nature Phys 13, 157–161 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3914
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3914
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