Local crystal and magnetic structure study on quantum spin liquid RuCl3 by neutron total scattering

Quantum Spin Liquid (QSL) is an exotic state of matter without long-range magnetic order of spins even down to the lowest temperatures. The honeycomb alpha-RuCl3 is a proposed candidate for the Kitaev QSL. However, certain magnetic orders were observed in RuCl3 below the temperature of ~14 K, which caused a contradiction to the theory of ideal Kitaev model. Since the magnetic Hanmiltonian strongly depends on the local crystal structure and bond angles, we herein propose to investigate the details of local structure in alpha-RuCl3 by neutron total scattering combined with reverse Monte Carlo modelling. Moreover, the magnetic signals contained in the total scattering data can be used to further observe possible short range magnetic orders by magnetic pair distribution function method, which will lead to a deeper and complete understanding of magnetic interactions in this material.