Gapped Spin-1/2 Spinon Excitations in a New Kagome Quantum Spin Liquid Compound Cu3Zn(OH)6FBr**Supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant Nos 2016YFA0300502, 2016YFA0300503, 2016YFA0300604, 2016YF0300300 and 2016YFA0300802, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 11421092, 11474330, 11574359, 11674406, 11374346 and 11674375, the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) under Grant

Abstract

We report a new kagome quantum spin liquid candidate Cu3Zn(OH)6FBr, which does not experience any phase transition down to 50 mK, more than three orders lower than the antiferromagnetic Curie-Weiss temperature (∼200 K). A clear gap opening at low temperature is observed in the uniform spin susceptibility obtained from 19F nuclear magnetic resonance measurements. We observe the characteristic magnetic field dependence of the gap as expected for fractionalized spin-1/2 spinon excitations. Our experimental results provide firm evidence for spin fractionalization in a topologically ordered spin system, resembling charge fractionalization in the fractional quantum Hall state.