Probing single magnon excitations in Sr₂IrO₄ using O K-edge resonant inelastic x-ray scattering

X Liu; M P M Dean; J Liu; S G Chiuzbăian; N Jaouen; A Nicolaou; W G Yin; C Rayan Serrao; R Ramesh; H Ding; J P Hill

doi:10.1088/0953-8984/27/20/202202

Probing single magnon excitations in Sr₂IrO₄ using O K-edge resonant inelastic x-ray scattering

J Phys Condens Matter. 2015 May 27;27(20):202202. doi: 10.1088/0953-8984/27/20/202202. Epub 2015 Apr 29.

Authors

X Liu¹, M P M Dean, J Liu, S G Chiuzbăian, N Jaouen, A Nicolaou, W G Yin, C Rayan Serrao, R Ramesh, H Ding, J P Hill

Affiliation

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China. Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA. Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 25921058
DOI: 10.1088/0953-8984/27/20/202202

Abstract

Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) at the L-edge of transition metal elements is now commonly used to probe single magnon excitations. Here we show that single magnon excitations can also be measured with RIXS at the K-edge of the surrounding ligand atoms when the center heavy metal elements have strong spin-orbit coupling. This is demonstrated with oxygen K-edge RIXS experiments on the perovskite Sr2IrO4, where low energy peaks from single magnon excitations were observed. This new application of RIXS has excellent potential to be applied to a wide range of magnetic systems based on heavy elements, for which the L-edge RIXS energy resolution in the hard x-ray region is usually poor.