Designing Kitaev Spin Liquids in Metal-Organic Frameworks

Kitaev's honeycomb lattice spin model is a remarkable exactly solvable model, which has a particular type of spin liquid (Kitaev spin liquid) as the ground state. Although its possible realization in iridates and α-RuCl₃ has been vigorously discussed recently, these materials have substantial non-Kitaev direct exchange interactions and do not have a spin liquid ground state. We propose metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with Ru³⁺ (or Os³⁺), forming the honeycomb lattice as promising candidates for a more ideal realization of Kitaev-type spin models, where the direct exchange interaction is strongly suppressed. The great flexibility of MOFs allows generalization to other three-dimensional lattices for the potential realization of a variety of spin liquids, such as a Weyl spin liquid.