Probing high-energy electronic excitations in the Shastry-Sutherland compound SrCu2(BO3)2 with resonant inelastic x-ray scattering and optical spectroscopy

The Shastry-Sutherland compound SrCu₂(BO₃)₂ (SCBO) is a paradigmatic low-dimensional quantum spin system, featuring geometrically frustrated interacting spin dimers and a rich landscape of emergent quantum phenomena. While its magnetic properties have been extensively explored, the nature of its electronic excitations - particularly the Cu²⁺ d–d transitions - remains poorly understood. A detailed characterization of these excitations is essential to determine the crystal field splitting and the degree of Cu 3d–O 2p hybridization, both of which underpin superexchange interactions and magnetic behavior in SCBO. Here, the electronic properties of SCBO are investigated by combining spectroscopic techniques with theoretical approaches for first-principles band structure calculations.
Experimentally, we employ L₃-edge resonant inelastic x‑ray scattering (RIXS) to directly probe intra-d excitations, supplemented by broadband infrared reflectivity and ellipsometry measurements to resolve charge-transfer (CT) features. Theoretically, multireference quantum chemistry calculations accurately reproduce the energies (1.8–2.4 eV) and symmetries of the observed d–d excitations, while band-structure calculations based on density functional theory elucidate the CT excitation spectrum. These combined approaches define the energy scales for both d–d and CT transitions, validate the computational framework, and provide quantitative microscopic parameters essential for refining superexchange-based magnetic models in this prototypical frustrated quantum antiferromagnet.