Thermal Hall conductivity in the cuprate Mott insulators Nd2CuO4 and Sr2CuO2Cl2

Marie-Eve Boulanger, Gaël Grissonnanche, Sven Badoux, Andréanne Allaire, Étienne Lefrançois, Anaëlle Legros, Adrien Gourgout, Maxime Dion, C. H. Wang, X. H. Chen, R. Liang, W. N. Hardy, D. A. Bonn and Louis Taillefer ()
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Marie-Eve Boulanger: Université de Sherbrooke
Gaël Grissonnanche: Université de Sherbrooke
Sven Badoux: Université de Sherbrooke
Andréanne Allaire: Université de Sherbrooke
Étienne Lefrançois: Université de Sherbrooke
Anaëlle Legros: Université de Sherbrooke
Adrien Gourgout: Université de Sherbrooke
Maxime Dion: Université de Sherbrooke
C. H. Wang: University of Science and Technology of China
X. H. Chen: University of Science and Technology of China
R. Liang: University of British Columbia
W. N. Hardy: University of British Columbia
D. A. Bonn: University of British Columbia
Louis Taillefer: Université de Sherbrooke

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract The heat carriers responsible for the unexpectedly large thermal Hall conductivity of the cuprate Mott insulator La2CuO4 were recently shown to be phonons. However, the mechanism by which phonons in cuprates acquire chirality in a magnetic field is still unknown. Here, we report a similar thermal Hall conductivity in two cuprate Mott insulators with significantly different crystal structures and magnetic orders – Nd2CuO4 and Sr2CuO2Cl2 – and show that two potential mechanisms can be excluded – the scattering of phonons by rare-earth impurities and by structural domains. Our comparative study further reveals that orthorhombicity, apical oxygens, the tilting of oxygen octahedra and the canting of spins out of the CuO2 planes are not essential to the mechanism of chirality. Our findings point to a chiral mechanism coming from a coupling of acoustic phonons to the intrinsic excitations of the CuO2 planes.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18881-z

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