Spiral spin liquid in a frustrated honeycomb antiferromagnet: A single-crystal study of GdZnPO

Abstract

The frustrated honeycomb spin model can stabilize a subextensively degenerate spiral spin liquid with nontrivial topological excitations and defects, but its material realization remains rare. Here, we report the experimental realization of this model in the structurally disorder-free compound GdZnPO. Using a single-crystal sample, we find that spin-7/2 rare-earth Gd${}^{3+}$ ions form a honeycomb lattice with dominant second-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic and first-nearest-neighbor ferromagnetic couplings, along with easy-plane single-site anisotropy. This frustrated model stabilizes a unique spiral spin liquid with a degenerate contour around the $\mathrm{K}$$\{$1/3,1/3$\}$ point in reciprocal space, consistent with our experiments down to 30 mK, including the observation of a giant residual specific heat. Our results establish GdZnPO as an ideal platform for exploring the stability of spiral spin liquids and their novel properties, such as the emergence of low-energy topological defects on the sublattices.

PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 133, 236704 (2024)

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Giant Magnetocaloric Effect in a Honeycomb Spiral Spin-Liquid Candidate
• Frustration-driven topological textures on the honeycomb lattice: antiferromagnetic meron-antimeron and skyrmion crystals emerging from spiral spin liquids
• Itinerant and topological excitations in a honeycomb spiral spin liquid candidate
• Spiral spin liquid resilient to quantization in the frustrated honeycomb antiferromagnet GdZnPO
• Codimension-Two Spiral Spin-Liquid in the Effective Honeycomb-Lattice Compound Cs${}_3$Fe${}_2$Cl${}_9$