Abstract ID T066

Spin liquid state and its instability in the organic triangular 1/2-spin system EtMe3 Sb[Pd(dmit)2 ]2
T. Itou,a T. Kubota,a K. Yamashita,a M. Nishiyama,a A. Oyamada,a S. Maegawa,a K. Kubo,b,c H. M. Yamamoto,b,d and R. Kato,b a Graduated School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Japan b Condensed Molecular Materials Laboratory, RIKEN, Japan c Department of Chemistry, Graduated School of Science, Tohoku University, Japan d PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Japan Quantum liquidsknown to be realized in 3 He, 4 He, and electrons in metalsgenerally exhibit instabilities unforeseen under classical Newtonian dynamics such as the superuid / superconducting transition. Recently, a new quantum liquid has been discovered in organic frustrated antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 systems, called the quantum spin liquid. The fundamental question is whether instabilities other than classical ordering occur in such a quantum spin liquid, as well as in the typical well-known quantum liquids. Indeed, theorists have proposed several possible instabilities, such as spinon pairing and chiral ordering. In the most studied organic spin-liquid material -(BEDT-TTF)2 Cu2 (CN)3 , however, experimental reports on its low-temperature nature are controversial and this question has remained an open issue. We report the discovery of spin-liquid instability found in a further organic spin-liquid material, EtMe3 Sb[Pd(dmit)2 ]2 , which is a 2D triangular-lattice spin system with antiferromagnetic interactions J = 220-250 K. It has previously been found that this spin system maintains a gapless spin-liquid state down to at least 1.37 K [1]. We performed 13 C-NMR measurements at ultra-low temperatures and found an obvious kink at around 1.0 1 K in the temperature dependence of T1 . This strongly suggests that a continuous phase transition occurs at this temperature. Since continuous transitions always involve essential changes of states, that is, symmetry breaking and/or topological ordering, our result indicates that the gapless spin liquid changes to an essentially dierent spin state with symmetry breaking and/or topological ordering. The low-temperature state clearly diers from the classical magnetic-ordered phase, because the 13 C-NMR spectra do not broaden at all. 1 The steep decrease in T1 in the low-temperature phase suggests the appearance of the spin gap. We point out that the decrease does not follow an exponential law but a power law of temperature at suciently low temperatures, which implies that this gap may be nodal one. We will discuss possible scenarios to explain the instability at around 1.0 K and the nature of the low-temperature phase, which is possibly a new quantum state of matter. This work was supported by Grant-In-Aid for Scientic Research from MEXT, Japan (numbers 16GS0219, 18740199, 19052005, 20110003, and 21740255). [1] T. Itou et al., Phys. Rev. B 77, 104413 (2008).