2024Physical Review Letters

Local Excitation of Kagome Spin Ice Magnetism Seen by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Hanbin Deng, Tianyu Yang, Guowei Liu, Lu Liu, Lingxiao Zhao, Wu Wang, Tiantian Li, Wei Song, Titus Neupert, Xiang-Rui Liu, Jifeng Shao, Y. Y. Zhao, Nan Xu, Hao Deng, Li Huang, Yue Zhao, Liyuan Zhang, Jia-Wei Mei, Liusuo Wu, Jiaqing He, Qihang Liu, Chang Liu, Jia-Xin Yin

Physical Review Letters · 133, 046503 (2024)

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DOI 10.1103/physrevlett.133.046503

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Introduction

Tunneling spectroscopy on kagome HoAgGe resolves paired conductance dips at opposite bias polarities. Temperature and magnetic-field tests connect the inelastic signal to spin-ice magnetism and motivate a local spin-flip model.

A closer reading

A local probe can select sites away from defects, but two symmetric dips alone do not identify the excitation. Their disappearance above the ordering regime and their field dependence supply the more discriminating evidence.