No Arabic abstract
We report $^{23}$Na and $^{59}$Co nuclear magnetic (NMR) and quadrupolar resonance (NQR) studies for the $x=2/3$ phase of the lamellar oxide Na$_{x}$CoO$_{2}$, which allowed us to establish reliably the atomic order of the Na layers and their stacking between the CoO$_{2}$ slabs. We evidence that the Na$^{+}$ order stabilizes filled non magnetic Co$^{3+}$ ions on 25% of the cobalt sites arranged in a triangular sublattice. The transferred holes are delocalized on the 75% complementary cobalt sites which unexpectedly display a planar cobalt kagom{e} structure. These experimental results resolve a puzzling issue by precluding localized moments pictures for the magnetic properties. They establish that the quasi ferromagnetic properties result from a narrow band connecting a frustrated arrangement of atomic orbitals, and open the route to unravel through similar studies the electronic properties of the diverse ordered phases of sodium cobaltates.
Electronic topology in metallic kagome compounds is under intense scrutiny. We present transport experiments in Na2/3CoO2 in which the Na order differentiates a Co kagome sub-lattice in the triangular CoO2 layers. Hall and magnetoresistance (MR) data under high fields give evidence for the coexistence of light and heavy carriers. At low Ts, the dominant light carrier conductivity at zero field is suppressed by a B-linear MR suggesting Dirac like quasiparticles. Lifshitz transitions induced at large B and T unveil the lower mobility carriers. They display a negative B^2 MR due to scattering from magnetic moments likely pertaining to a flat band. We underline an analogy with heavy Fermion physics.
We report a complete set of $^{59}$Co NMR data taken on the $x=2/3$ phase of sodium cobaltates Na$_{x}$CoO$_{2}$, for which we have formerly established the in plane Na ordering and its three dimensional stacking from a combination of symmetry arguments taken from Na and Co NQR/NMR data. Here we resolve all the parameters of the Zeeman and quadrupolar Hamiltonians for all cobalt sites in the unit cell and report the temperature dependencies of the NMR shift and spin lattice relaxation $T_{1}$ data for these sites. We confirm that three non-magnetic Co$^{3+}$ (Co1) are in axially symmetric positions and that the doped holes are delocalized on the nine complementary magnetic cobalt sites (Co2) of the atomic unit cell. The moderately complicated atomic structure resumes then in a very simple electronic structure in which the electrons delocalize on the Co2 kagome sublattice of the triangular lattice of Co sites. The observation of a single temperature dependence of the spin susceptibilities indicates that a single band picture applies, and that the magnetic properties are dominated by the static and dynamic electronic properties at the Co2 sites. We evidence that they display a strong in plane electronic anisotropy initially unexpected but which accords perfectly with an orbital ordering along the kagome sublattice organization. These detailed data should now permit realistic calculations of the electronic properties of this compound in order to determine the incidence of electronic correlations.
We present the results of neutron diffraction studies on polycrystals of a metallic kagome lattice, Tb3Ru4Al12, reported recently to undergo reentrant magnetism, with the onset of long range antiferromagnetic order below (TN=) 22 K and spin-glass features below about 17 K. The present results reveal long-range antiferromagnetic order of an incommensurate type with the moments oriented along c-axis at all temperatures below TN. There are however notable changes in the T dependence of propagation vector along b-axis across 17 K. An observation of interest is that there is no decrease of intensity of magnetic Bragg peaks on entrance into the glassy phase (that is, below 17 K). This finding suggests that the magnetism of this compound is an exotic one and we wonder whether this compound is an example for dynamical spin-glass freezing phenomenon, as a consequence of geometrical frustration.
In two-dimensional (2D) metallic kagome lattice materials, destructive interference of electronic hopping pathways around the kagome bracket can produce nearly localized electrons, and thus electronic bands that are flat in momentum space. When ferromagnetic order breaks the degeneracy of the electronic bands and splits them into the spin-up majority and spin-down minority electronic bands, quasiparticle excitations between the spin-up and spin-down flat bands should form a narrow localized spin-excitation Stoner continuum coexisting with well-defined spin waves in the long wavelengths. Here we report inelastic neutron scattering studies of spin excitations in 2D metallic Kagome lattice antiferromagnetic FeSn and paramagnetic CoSn, where angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments found spin-polarized and nonpolarized flat bands, respectively, below the Fermi level. Although our initial measurements on FeSn indeed reveal well-defined spin waves extending well above 140 meV coexisting with a flat excitation at 170 meV, subsequent experiments on CoSn indicate that the flat mode actually arises mostly from hydrocarbon scattering of the CYTOP-M commonly used to glue the samples to aluminum holder. Therefore, our results established the evolution of spin excitations in FeSn and CoSn, and identified an anomalous flat mode that has been overlooked by the neutron scattering community for the past 20 years.
Kitaevs honeycomb spin-liquid model and its proposed realization in materials such as $alpha$-RuCl$_3$, Li$_2$IrO$_3$ and Na$_2$IrO$_3$ continue to present open questions about how the dynamics of a spin-liquid are modified in the presence of non-Kitaev interactions as well as the presence of inhomogeneities. Here we use $^{23}$Na nuclear magnetic resonance to probe both static and dynamical magnetic properties in single crystal Na$_2$IrO$_3$. We find that the NMR shift follows the bulk susceptibility above 30 K but deviates from it below; moreover below $T_N$ the spectra show a broad distribution of internal magnetic fields. Both of these results provide evidence for inequivalent magnetic sites at low temperature, suggesting inhomogeneities are important for the magnetism. The spin-lattice relaxation rate is isotropic and diverges at $T_N$, suggesting that the Kitaev cubic axes may control the critical quantum spin fluctuations. In the ordered state, we observe gapless excitations, which may arise from site substitution, emergent defects from milder disorder, or possibly be associated with nearby quantum paramagnetic states distinct from the Kitaev spin liquid.