New Quantum Spin Liquid Candidates Based on a Tm triangular lattice

Quantum spin liquids are exotic states of matter where the electron spins are highly entangled but do not display any long-range magnetic order even at zero temperature. They contain fractionalized excitations and could lead to high-temperature superconductivity as well as applications in quantum computation. Therefore, the experimental realization of quantum spin liquids has been a long-sought goal of condensed matter physics. Several triangular lattice rare earth compounds have been proposed as quantum spin liquid candidates thus far. The rare earth ions in these compounds have small spins and form a triangular lattice which can lead to exotic ground states due to geometric frustration brought about by the lattice symmetry. In this talk, I will discuss our results from single crystal thermodynamic measurements (field-dependent heat capacity, magnetization, ac susceptibility) and powder inelastic neutron scattering measurements on Tm-based triangular lattice compounds. No long-range order is observed down to 50 mK. The magnetic susceptibility indicates a high degree of frustration with a Curie-Weiss temperature of -14 K. These are all indications of a quantum spin liquid ground state.