Kitaev materials—spin‑orbit‑entangled Mott insulators on the honeycomb lattice—have emerged as one of the most promising platforms for realizing quantum spin liquids, hosting fractionalized Majorana excitations and a wealth of unconventional magnetic phenomena. Despite intense theoretical and experimental effort, determining the correct microscopic interactions and identifying spin‑liquid phases in real materials remain central challenges, and this talk presents several contributions toward resolving them.

Beginning with a symmetry analysis of the extended Kitaev model, we first establish a robust strategy for determining the spin interactions from fundamental symmetry constraints. This method is then applied to the higher‑spin honeycomb magnets CrI3, resolving the debate about the strength of the Kitaev interaction and revealing a microscopic route to bond‑dependent exchange in CrX3 systems. We next address the enigmatic field‑induced regime of RuCl3, demonstrating that interlayer couplings—often dismissed as negligible—play a decisive role near the transition to partially polarized states and explain the exotic magnetic responses. Finally, we extend beyond conventional Kitaev physics by exploring flavoured Kitaev materials, where spin–orbital degrees of freedom and ligand‑mediated spin–orbit coupling give rise to the Kitaev-Yao-Lee spin-orbital models and remarkably robust disordered phases. Together, these results chart a comprehensive pathway for identifying Kitaev quantum spin‑liquid candidates.