We explore orbital dynamics in the spin liquid candidate Ba3CuSb2O9 using multi-frequency electron spin resonance. We prepared two high quality single crystals. The crystal with a slight copper deficiency shows a structural phase transition at around 200 K due to the cooperative Jahn-Teller effect, accompanied with orbital ordering. In contrast, the crystal with almost perfect stoichiometry shows no orbital ordering down to the lowest temperature of 1.5 K. Dramatic change in the g-factor anisotropy as a function of frequency and temperature demonstrates orbital quantum fluctuations at a nearly constant time scale of ~ 100 ps below 20 K, evidencing the emergence of an orbital liquid state in this quantum spin liquid compound.
@article{arxiv.1508.01653,
title = {Observation of the orbital quantum dynamics in the spin-1/2 hexagonal antiferromagnet Ba3CuSb2O9},
author = {Yibo Han and Masayuki Hagiwara and Takehito Nakano and Yasuo Nozue and Kenta Kimura and Mario Halim and Satoru Nakatsuji},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1508.01653},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
15 pages,4 figures, including 9 pages supplemental material