%0 Journal Article
%A Mi, Xinrun
%A Wang, Xiao
%A Gui, Hengrui
%A Pi, Maocai
%A Zheng, Tingting
%A Yang, Kunya
%A Gan, Yuhan
%A Wang, Peipei
%A Li, Alei
%A Wang, Aifeng
%A Zhang, Liyuan
%A Su, Yixi
%A Chai, Yisheng
%A He, Mingquan
%T Stacking faults in α−RuCl3 revealed by local electric polarization
%J Physical review / B
%V 103
%N 17
%@ 2469-9969
%C Woodbury, NY
%I Inst.
%M FZJ-2021-02155
%P 174413
%D 2021
%X We present out-of-plane dielectric and magnetodielectric measurements of single-crystalline α−RuCl3 with various degrees of stacking faults. A frequency-dependent, but field-independent, dielectric anomaly appears at TA(f=100kHz)∼4 K once both magnetic transitions at TN1∼7 K and TN2∼14 K set in. The observed dielectric anomaly is attributed to the emergence of possible local electric polarizations whose inversion symmetry is broken by inhomogeneously distributed stacking faults. A field-induced intermediate phase is only observed when a magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the Ru-Ru bonds for samples with minimal stacking faults. Less pronounced in-plane anisotropy is found in samples with a sizable contribution from stacking imperfections. Our findings suggest that dielectric measurement is a sensitive probe in detecting the structural and magnetic properties, which may be a promising tool, especially in studying α−RuCl3 thin-film devices. Moreover, the stacking details of RuCl3 layers strongly affect the ground state both in the magnetic and electric channels. Such a fragile ground state against stacking faults needs to be overcome for realistic applications utilizing the magnetic and/or electric properties of Kitaev-based physics in α−RuCl3.
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)16
%9 Journal Article
%U <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000655863000002
%R 10.1103/PhysRevB.103.174413
%U https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/892556