O17 NMR Evidence for Orbital Dependent Ferromagnetic Correlations in Sr2RuO4

We probed spin correlations in Ru 4dxy and 4dyz,zx orbitals separately in the unconventional metallic state of Sr2RuO4 by 17O NMR. We establish that spin correlations are orbital dependent, and only the Ru 4dxy spin susceptibility χxy increases significantly with decreasing temperature prior to the crossover to the canonical Fermi liquid state at TFL=25 K. The temperature dependence of 17O and 101Ru nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rates 117,101/T1 uncovers interplay between the growth of ferromagnetic spin fluctuations and anomalous charge transport properties.