Doping Dependence of Collective Spin and Orbital Excitations in the Spin-1 Quantum Antiferromagnet La2xSrxNiO4 Observed by X Rays

G. Fabbris, D. Meyers, L. Xu, V. M. Katukuri, L. Hozoi, X. Liu, Z.-Y. Chen, J. Okamoto, T. Schmitt, A. Uldry, B. Delley, G. D. Gu, D. Prabhakaran, A. T. Boothroyd, J. van den Brink, D. J. Huang, and M. P. M. Dean
Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 156402 – Published 12 April 2017
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Abstract

We report the first empirical demonstration that resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) is sensitive to collective magnetic excitations in S=1 systems by probing the Ni L3 edge of La2xSrxNiO4 (x=0, 0.33, 0.45). The magnetic excitation peak is asymmetric, indicating the presence of single and multi-spin-flip excitations. As the hole doping level is increased, the zone boundary magnon energy is suppressed at a much larger rate than that in hole doped cuprates. Based on the analysis of the orbital and charge excitations observed by RIXS, we argue that this difference is related to the orbital character of the doped holes in these two families. This work establishes RIXS as a probe of fundamental magnetic interactions in nickelates opening the way towards studies of heterostructures and ultrafast pump-probe experiments.

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  • Received 14 December 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.156402

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

G. Fabbris1,*, D. Meyers1, L. Xu2, V. M. Katukuri2,‡, L. Hozoi2, X. Liu3,4, Z.-Y. Chen5, J. Okamoto5, T. Schmitt6, A. Uldry7, B. Delley7, G. D. Gu1, D. Prabhakaran8, A. T. Boothroyd8, J. van den Brink2, D. J. Huang5,9, and M. P. M. Dean1,†

  • 1Department of Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA
  • 2Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics, IFW Dresden, Helmholtzstraße, 20, 01069 Dresden, Germany
  • 3Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
  • 4Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing, China
  • 5National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Hsinchu 30076, Taiwan
  • 6Research Department “Synchotron Radiation and Nanotechnology”, Paul Scherrer Institut, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
  • 7Condensed Matter Theory Group, Paul Scherrer Institut, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
  • 8Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford, OX1 3PU, United Kingdom
  • 9Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan

  • *gfabbris@bnl.gov
  • mdean@bnl.gov
  • Present address: Chair of Computational Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Ecole Polytechnique Féderale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.

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Issue

Vol. 118, Iss. 15 — 14 April 2017

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