Condensed Matter Physics; Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
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Abstract:
The crystal structure, resistivity, and magnetic susceptibility of the Li2Ir1−xRuxO3 (x = 0-1) polycrystals
have been investigated. We found that the parent antiferromagnetic phase disappears for x > 0.2 and bond
dimers appear in the averaged structure for x > 0.5 and likely fluctuate for much smaller x. Unexpectedly, this
system remains insulating for all the doping levels, contrary to the predictions based on the one-band jeff = 1/2
Kitaev-Heisenberg model. These results suggest that the honeycomb iridates doped with ruthenium are a unique
5d-orbital-based platform for studying the interplay of the charge, orbital, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom.
