31 Oct 2016

An international research team has proved the existence of spin-spirals in a quantum liquid. They emerge at low temperatures from the magnetic moments ("spins") of manganese scandium thiospinel single crystals (MnSc2S4). Neighbouring spins fluctuate here collectively as spirals, but when spatial distances are involved, they do not take on any particular order, just as water molecules will only form structures with neighbouring water molecules. Proof of this so-called "spiral spin-liquid" was achieved with the help of polarized diffuse neutron scattering on an instrument of Forschungszentrum Jülich at its outstation at the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum.