Effect Of Structural Disorder On The Kitaev Magnet Ag3liir2o6

The search for an ideal Kitaev spin liquid candidate with anyonic excitations and long-range entanglement has motivated the synthesis of a new family of intercalated Kitaev magnets such as H3LiIr2O6, Cu2IrO3, and Ag3LiIr2O6. The absence of a susceptibility peak and a two-step release of the magnetic entropy in these materials have been proposed as evidence of proximity to the Kitaev spin liquid. Here we present a comparative study of the magnetic susceptibility, heat capacity, and muon spin relaxation (mu SR) between two samples of Ag3LiIr2O6 in the clean and disordered limits. In the disordered limit, the absence of a peak in either susceptibility or heat capacity and the lack of zero-field muon precession in the mu SR signal give the impression of a proximate spin liquid state. However, in the clean limit, peaks are resolved in both susceptibility and heat capacity, and spontaneous oscillations appear in the mu SR signal, confirming long-range antiferromagnetic order in the ground state. The mu SR oscillations fit to a Bessel function, characteristic of incommensurate order, as reported in the parent compound alpha-Li2IrO3. Our results clarify the role of structural disorder in the intercalated Kitaev magnets.