Designing Kitaev spin liquids in metal-organic frameworks
Abstract
Kitaev's honeycomb lattice spin model is a remarkable exactly solvable model, which has a particular type of spin liquid (Kitaev spin liquid) as the ground state. Although its possible realization in iridates and α-RuCl3 has been vigorously discussed recently, these materials have substantial non-Kitaev direct exchange interactions and do not have a spin liquid ground state. We propose metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with Ru3+ (or Os3+) forming the honeycomb lattice as promising candidates for a more ideal realization of Kitaev-type spin models where the direct exchange interaction is strongly suppressed. The great flexibility of MOFs allows generalization to other three-dimensional lattices, for potential realization of a variety of spin liquids such as a Weyl spin liquid.