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    Magnon spectrum of the helimagnetic insulator Cu2OSeO3
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Portnichenko, P.Y.; Romhányi, J.; Onykiienko, Y.A.; Henschel, A.; Schmidt, M.; Cameron, A.S.; Surmach, M.A.; Lim, J.A.; Park, J.T.; Schneidewind, A.; Abernathy, D.L.; Rosner, H.; van den Brink, Jeroen; Inosov, D.S.
    Complex low-temperature-ordered states in chiral magnets are typically governed by a competition between multiple magnetic interactions. The chiral-lattice multiferroic Cu2OSeO3 became the first insulating helimagnetic material in which a long-range order of topologically stable spin vortices known as skyrmions was established. Here we employ state-of-the-art inelastic neutron scattering to comprehend the full three-dimensional spin-excitation spectrum of Cu2OSeO3 over a broad range of energies. Distinct types of high- and low-energy dispersive magnon modes separated by an extensive energy gap are observed in excellent agreement with the previously suggested microscopic theory based on a model of entangled Cu4 tetrahedra. The comparison of our neutron spectroscopy data with model spin-dynamical calculations based on these theoretical proposals enables an accurate quantitative verification of the fundamental magnetic interactions in Cu2OSeO3 that are essential for understanding its abundant low-temperature magnetically ordered phases.
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    Strongly frustrated triangular spin lattice emerging from triplet dimer formation in honeycomb Li2IrO3
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Nishimoto, Satoshi; Katukuri, Vamshi M.; Yushankhai, Viktor; Stoll, Hermann; Rößler, Ulrich K.; Hozoi, Liviu; Rousochatzakis, Ioannis; van den Brink, Jeroen
    Iridium oxides with a honeycomb lattice have been identified as platforms for the much anticipated Kitaev topological spin liquid: the spin-orbit entangled states of Ir4+ in principle generate precisely the required type of anisotropic exchange. However, other magnetic couplings can drive the system away from the spin-liquid phase. With this in mind, here we disentangle the different magnetic interactions in Li2IrO3, a honeycomb iridate with two crystallographically inequivalent sets of adjacent Ir sites. Our ab initio many-body calculations show that, while both Heisenberg and Kitaev nearest-neighbour couplings are present, on one set of Ir–Ir bonds the former dominates, resulting in the formation of spin-triplet dimers. The triplet dimers frame a strongly frustrated triangular lattice and by exact cluster diagonalization we show that they remain protected in a wide region of the phase diagram.
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    Different types of spin currents in the comprehensive materials database of nonmagnetic spin Hall effect
    (London : Nature Publ. Group, 2021) Zhang, Yang; Xu, Qiunan; Koepernik, Klaus; Rezaev, Roman; Janson, Oleg; Železný, Jakub; Jungwirth, Tomáš; Felser, Claudia; van den Brink, Jeroen; Sun, Yan
    Spin Hall effect (SHE) has its special position in spintronics. To gain new insight into SHE and to identify materials with substantial spin Hall conductivity (SHC), we performed high-precision high-throughput ab initio calculations of the intrinsic SHC for over 20,000 nonmagnetic crystals. The calculations revealed a strong relationship between the magnitude of the SHC and the crystalline symmetry, where a large SHC is typically associated with mirror symmetry-protected nodal line band structures. This database includes 11 materials with an SHC comparable to or even larger than that of Pt. Materials with different types of spin currents were additionally identified. Furthermore, we found that different types of spin current can be obtained by rotating applied electrical fields. This improves our understanding and is expected to facilitate the design of new types of spin-orbitronic devices.