Kondo screening in a charge-insulating spinon metal

Abstract

The Kondo effect, an eminent manifestation of many-body physics in condensed matter, is traditionally explained as exchange scattering of conduction electrons on a spinful impurity in a metal. The resulting screening of the impurity's local moment by the electron Fermi sea is characterized by a Kondo temperature $T_K$, below which the system enters a non-perturbative strongly-coupled regime. In recent years, this effect has found its realizations beyond the bulk-metal paradigm in many other itinerant-electron systems, such as quantum dots in semiconductor heterostructures and in nanomaterials, quantum point contacts, and graphene. Here we report on the first experimental observation of the Kondo screening by chargeless quasiparticles. This occurs in a charge-insulating quantum spin liquid, where spinon excitations forming a Fermi surface take the role of conduction electrons. The observed impurity behaviour therefore bears a strong resemblance to the conventional case in a metal. The discovered spinon-based Kondo effect provides a prominent platform for characterising and possibly manipulating enigmatic host spin liquids.

arXiv commentaccepted for publication in Nature Physics

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• Gapless ground state in the archetypal quantum kagome antiferromagnet ZnCu${}_3$(OH)${}_6$Cl${}_2$
• Evidence for a spinon Kondo effect in cobalt atoms on single-layer 1T-TaSe${}_2$
• Experimental signatures of quantum and topological states in frustrated magnetism
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• Evolution and universality of Two-stage Kondo effect in single manganese phthalocyanine molecule transistors
• Heat Transport in Herbertsmithite: Can a Quantum Spin Liquid Survive Disorder?
• From magnetic order to quantum disorder: a $\mu$SR study of the Zn-barlowite series of $S=\frac{1}{2}$ kagomé antiferromagnets, Zn${}_x$Cu${}_{4-x}$(OH)${}_6$FBr
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• Magnetic Impurity as a Local Probe of the U(1) Quantum Spin Liquid with Spinon Fermi Surface
• Specific Heat of the Kagome Antiferromagnet Herbertsmithite in High Magnetic Fields
• Magnetism and Néel skyrmion dynamics in GaV${}_4$S${}_{8-y}$Se${}_y$
• Magnetic ordering of the distorted kagome antiferromagnet Y${}_3$Cu${}_9$(OH)${}_{18}$[Cl${}_8$(OH)] prepared via optimal synthesis
• Heat conduction in herbertsmithite: field dependence at the onset of the quantum spin liquid regime
• Effects of frustration on the nonequilibrium dynamics of photo-excited lattice systems
• Emergent Kondo behavior from gauge fluctuations in spin liquids
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• Detecting symmetry fractionalization in gapped quantum spin liquids by magnetic impurities
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