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Frustrated spin-1/2 chains in a correlated metal

Nature Materials volume 24, pages 716–721 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Electronic correlations lead to heavy quasiparticles in three-dimensional (3D) metals, and their collapse can destabilize magnetic moments. It is an open question whether there is an analogous instability in one-dimensional (1D) systems, unanswered due to the lack of metallic spin chain materials. We report neutron scattering measurements and density matrix renormalization group calculations establishing spinons in the correlated metal Ti4MnBi2, confirming that its magnetism is 1D. Ti4MnBi2 is inherently frustrated, forming near a quantum critical point that separates different phases at temperature T = 0. One-dimensional magnetism dominates at the lowest T, and is barely affected by weak interchain coupling. Ti4MnBi2 is a previously unrecognized metallic spin chain in which 3D conduction electrons become strongly correlated due to their coupling to 1D magnetic moments.

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Fig. 1: Spin S = 1/2 chains in Ti4MnBi2.
Fig. 2: Emerging magnetic correlations in Ti4MnBi2.
Fig. 3: Spinons and helical modes in Ti4MnBi2.
Fig. 4: Temperature dependence of the spin dynamics in Ti4MnBi2.

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Data availability

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are available in the article or the Supplementary Information. Raw neutron scattering data acquired in this study are preserved indefinitely at J-PARC.

Code availability

The numerical results reported in this work were obtained with DMRG++ v.6.07 and PsimagLite v.3.07. The DMRG++ computer program is available at https://github.com/g1257/dmrgpp.git (see Supplementary Information, section 4 for more details).

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. I. Khomskii, I. Zaliznyak, A. M. Tsvelik, K. Nakajima, S. E. Nagler, J. Fernandez-Baca, Y. M. Qiu and W. Yang for helpful discussions. A.N. acknowledges computational resources and services provided by Advanced Research Computing at The University of British Columbia. The AMATERAS and DNA experiments were performed under the auspices of the user programme at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility of the J-PARC (proposal numbers 2020B0107 and 2022A0069). Work at Texas A&M University (X.Y.L.) was supported by the National Science Foundation through grant NSF-DMR-1807451. Work at The University of British Columbia (X.Y.L., M.C.A., M.O., A.N., K.F., G.S.) was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and through the Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute by the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    X. Y. Li, A. Nocera, K. Foyevtsova, G. A. Sawatzky, M. Oudah & M. C. Aronson

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    G. A. Sawatzky & M. C. Aronson

  3. J-PARC Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Tokai, Japan

    N. Murai, M. Kofu & H. Tamatsukuri

  4. Comprehensive Research Organization for Science and Society, Tokai, Japan

    M. Matsuura

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Contributions

X.Y.L. and M.O. grew the single crystals and characterized them. X.Y.L., N.M. and M.K. performed neutron scattering experiments on AMATERAS at J-PARC. X.Y.L., M.M. and H.T. performed neutron scattering experiments on DNA at J-PARC. X.Y.L. analysed the neutron scattering data in consultation with M.C.A. A.N. carried out DMRG calculations, and K.F. carried out DFT calculations in consultation with G.A.S. X.Y.L. and M.C.A. wrote the paper with contributions from all the authors.

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Correspondence to X. Y. Li.

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Nature Materials thanks Xingye Lu and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–22, text and Tables 1–3.

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Li, X.Y., Nocera, A., Foyevtsova, K. et al. Frustrated spin-1/2 chains in a correlated metal. Nat. Mater. 24, 716–721 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02192-z

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