The discovery of superconductivity in infinite-layer nickelates brings us tantalizingly close to a new material class that mirrors the cuprate superconductors. Here, we report on magnetic excitations in these nickelates, measured using resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) at the Ni L3-edge, to shed light on the material complexity and microscopic physics. Undoped NdNiO2 possesses a branch of dispersive excitations with a bandwidth of approximately 200 meV, reminiscent of strongly-coupled, antiferromagnetically aligned spins on a square lattice, despite a lack of evidence for long range magnetic order. The significant damping of these modes indicates the importance of coupling to rare-earth itinerant electrons. Upon doping, the spectral weight and energy decrease slightly, while the modes become overdamped. Our results highlight the role of Mottness in infinite-layer nickelates.
@article{arxiv.2105.11300,
title = {Magnetic excitations in infinite-layer nickelates},
author = {H. Lu and M. Rossi and A. Nag and M. Osada and D. F. Li and K. Lee and B. Y. Wang and M. Garcia-Fernandez and S. Agrestini and Z. X. Shen and E. M. Been and B. Moritz and T. P. Devereaux and J. Zaanen and H. Y. Hwang and Ke-Jin Zhou and W. S. Lee},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.11300},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
This is the initially submitted version before revising for reviewers' comments. The peer-reviewed version has been accepted at Science and will be published soon