TY  - JOUR
AU  - Mi, Xinrun
AU  - Wang, Xiao
AU  - Gui, Hengrui
AU  - Pi, Maocai
AU  - Zheng, Tingting
AU  - Yang, Kunya
AU  - Gan, Yuhan
AU  - Wang, Peipei
AU  - Li, Alei
AU  - Wang, Aifeng
AU  - Zhang, Liyuan
AU  - Su, Yixi
AU  - Chai, Yisheng
AU  - He, Mingquan
TI  - Stacking faults in α−RuCl3 revealed by local electric polarization
JO  - Physical review / B
VL  - 103
IS  - 17
SN  - 2469-9969
CY  - Woodbury, NY
PB  - Inst.
M1  - FZJ-2021-02155
SP  - 174413
PY  - 2021
AB  - 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.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000655863000002
DO  - DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.103.174413
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/892556
ER  -