Chen, Yi He, Wen-Yu Ruan, Wei Hwang, Jinwoong Tang, Shujie Lee, Ryan L. Wu, Meng Zhu, Tiancong Zhang, Canxun Ryu, Hyejin Wang, Feng Louie, Steven G. Shen, Zhi-Xun Mo, Sung-Kwan Lee, Patrick A. Crommie, Michael F. 2024-01-19T11:00:37Z 2024-01-19T11:00:37Z 2022-10-20 2022-11 1745-2473 https://pubs.kist.re.kr/handle/201004/114417 Quantum spin liquids are highly entangled, disordered magnetic states that are expected to arise in frustrated Mott insulators and to exhibit exotic fractional excitations such as spinons and chargons. Despite being electrical insulators, some quantum spin liquids are predicted to exhibit gapless itinerant spinons that yield metallic behaviour in the charge-neutral spin channel. We deposited isolated magnetic atoms onto single-layer 1T-TaSe2, a candidate gapless spin liquid, to probe how itinerant spinons couple to impurity spin centres. Using scanning tunnelling spectroscopy, we observe the emergence of new, impurity-induced resonance peaks at the 1T-TaSe2 Hubbard band edges when cobalt adatoms are positioned to have maximal spatial overlap with the local charge distribution. These resonance peaks disappear when the spatial overlap is reduced or when the magnetic impurities are replaced with nonmagnetic impurities. Theoretical simulations of a modified Anderson impurity model show that the observed peaks are consistent with a Kondo resonance induced by spinons combined with spin-charge binding effects that arise due to fluctuations of an emergent gauge field. Unconventional quasiparticles carrying spin but not electric charge emerge in quantum spin liquid phases. The Kondo interaction of these spinon quasiparticles with magnetic impurities may now have been observed. English Nature Publishing Group Evidence for a spinon Kondo effect in cobalt atoms on single-layer 1T-TaSe2 Article 10.1038/s41567-022-01751-4 1 Nature Physics, v.18, pp.1335 - 1340 Nature Physics 18 1335 1340 N scie scopus 000863144600003 Physics, Multidisciplinary Physics Article; Early Access MOTT INSULATOR LIQUID EVOLUTION IMPURITY