The exotic faces of entangled electrons in solids

In transition metal compounds, electrons are strongly entangled (correlated) by Coulomb interaction and forms a rich variety of solid, liquid and gas phases. We are aiming to explore exotic electronic phases formed by spin, charge and orbital degrees of freedom of entangled electrons. In this review, we report that by incorporating relativistic spin-orbit coupling, entanglement of spin and motion of electrons, in complex iridium oxides, even richer phases of correlated electrons emerge including spin orbital electron solid (Mott insulator), Dirac electron gas and Quantum spin liquid.