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Author: Gillig, Matthias ×

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    Phonon thermal transport shaped by strong spin-phonon scattering in a Kitaev material Na2Co2TeO6
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group, 2024) Hong, Xiaochen; Gillig, Matthias; Yao, Weiliang; Janssen, Lukas; Kocsis, Vilmos; Gass, Sebastian; Li, Yuan; Wolter, Anja U. B.; Büchner, Bernd; Hess, Christian
    The report of a half-quantized thermal Hall effect and oscillatory structures in the magnetothermal conductivity in the Kitaev material α-RuCl3 have sparked a strong debate on whether it is generated by Majorana fermion edge currents, spinon Fermi surface, or whether other more conventional mechanisms are at its origin. Here, we report low temperature thermal conductivity (κ) of another candidate Kitaev material, Na2Co2TeO6. The application of a magnetic field (B) along different principal axes of the crystal reveals a strong directional-dependent B impact on κ, while no evidence for mobile quasiparticles except phonons can be concluded at any field. Instead, severely scattered phonon transport prevails across the B−T phase diagram, revealing cascades of phase transitions for all B directions. Our results thus cast doubt on recent proposals for significant itinerant magnetic excitations in Na2Co2TeO6, and emphasize the importance of discriminating true spin liquid transport properties from scattered phonons in candidate materials.
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    Phononic-magnetic dichotomy of the thermal Hall effect in the Kitaev material Na2 Co2 TeO6
    (College Park, MD : APS, 2023) Gillig, Matthias; Hong, Xiaochen; Wellm, Christoph; Kataev, Vladislav; Yao, Weiliang; Li, Yuan; Büchner, Bernd; Hess, Christian
    The quest for a half-quantized thermal Hall effect of a Kitaev system represents an important tool to probe topological edge currents of emergent Majorana fermions. Pertinent experimental findings for α-RuCl3 are, however, strongly debated, and it has been argued that the thermal Hall signal stems from phonons or magnons rather than from Majorana fermions. Here, we investigate the thermal Hall effect of the Kitaev candidate material Na2Co2TeO6, and we show that the measured signal emerges from at least two components, phonons and magnetic excitations. This dichotomy results from our discovery that the longitudinal and transversal heat conductivities share clear phononic signatures, while the transversal signal changes sign upon entering the low-temperature, magnetically ordered phase. Our results demonstrate that uncovering a genuinely quantized magnetic thermal Hall effect in Kitaev topological quantum spin liquids such as α-RuCl3 and Na2Co2TeO6 requires disentangling phonon vs magnetic contributions, including potentially fractionalized excitations such as the expected Majorana fermions.