No Arabic abstract
We demonstrate that Kondo-Heisenberg systems, consisting of itinerant electrons and localized magnetic moments (Kondo impurities), can be used as a principally new platform to realize scalar chiral spin order. The underlying physics is governed by a competition of the Ruderman-Kittel-Kosuya-Yosida (RKKY) indirect exchange interaction between the local moments with the direct Heisenberg one. When the direct exchange is weak and RKKY dominates the isotropic system is in the disordered phase. A moderately large direct exchange leads to an Ising-type phase transition to the phase with chiral spin order. Our finding paves the way towards pioneering experimental realizations of the chiral spin liquid in low dimensional systems with spontaneously broken time reversal symmetry.
We study spin-dependent conductance in a system composed of a ferromagnetic (FM) Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) tip coupled to a metallic host surface with an adatom. The Kondo resonance is taken into account via the Doniach-Sunjic spectral function. For short lateral tip-adatom distances and due to the interplay between Kondo physics, quantum interfering effects and the ferromagnetism of the tip, a spin-splitting of the Fano-Kondo line shape arises in the conductance. A strong enhancement of the Fano-Kondo profile for the majority spin component of the FM tip is observed. When the tip is placed on the adatom, this gives a conductance 100 % polarized for a particular range of bias voltage. The system thus can be used as a powerful generator of spin polarized currents.
Motivated by recent experiments on the Heisenberg S=1/2 quantum spin liquid candidate material kapellasite, we classify all possible chiral (time-reversal symmetry breaking) spin liquids with fermionic spinons on the kagome lattice. We obtain the phase diagram for the physically relevant extended Heisenberg model, comparing the energies of a wide range of microscopic variational wave functions. We propose that, at low temperature, kapellasite exhibits a gapless chiral spin liquid phase with spinon Fermi surfaces. This two-dimensional state inherits many properties of the nearby one-dimensional phase of decoupled anti-ferromagnetic spin chains, but also shows some remarkable differences. We discuss the spin structure factors and other physical properties.
We apply our recently developed, selfconsistent renormalization group (RG) method to STM spectra of a two-impurity Kondo system consisting of two cobalt atoms connected by a one-dimensional Cu chain on a Cu surface. This RG method was developed to describe local spin screening in multi-impurity Kondo systems in presence of the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) interaction. Using the RKKY interaction of a one-dimensional chain, we explain the experimentally observed suppression and oscillation of the Kondo temperature, $T_K(y)$, as a function of the length of the chain and the corresponding RKKY interaction parameter $y$, regardless of the RKKY coupling being ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic.
By means of a numerical analysis using a non-Abelian symmetry realization of the density matrix renormalization group, we study the behavior of vector chirality correlations in isotropic frustrated chains of spin S=1 and S=1/2, subject to a strong external magnetic field. It is shown that the field induces a phase with spontaneously broken chiral symmetry, in line with earlier theoretical predictions. We present results on the field dependence of the order parameter and the critical exponents.
Spin current, i.e. the flow of spin angular momentum or magnetic moment, has recently attracted much attention as the promising alternative for charge current with better energy efficiency. Genuine spin current is generally carried by the spin wave (propagating spin precession) in insulating ferromagnets, and should hold the chiral symmetry when it propagates along the spin direction. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that such a spin wave spin current (SWSC) shows nonreciprocal propagation characters in a chiral-lattice ferromagnet. This phenomenon originates from the interference of chirality between the SWSC and crystal-lattice, which is mediated by the relativistic spin-orbit interaction. The present finding enables the design of perfect spin current diode, and highlights the importance of the chiral aspect in SWSC.