No Arabic abstract
Large single crystals of the new compound SrMn$_2$V$_2$O$_8$ have been grown by the floating-zone method. This transition-metal based oxide is isostructural to SrNi$_2$V$_2$O$_8$, described by the tetragonal space group $I4_1cd$. Magnetic properties were investigated by means of susceptibility, magnetization, and specific heat measurements. The title compound behaves like a one-dimensional magnetic system above the ordering temperature ($T_N$ = 43 K). The magnetic ground state can be described as a classical long-range ordered antiferromagnet with weak anisotropy.
Since the seminal ideas of Berezinskii, Kosterlitz and Thouless, topological excitations are at the heart of our understanding of a whole novel class of phase transitions. In most of the cases, those transitions are controlled by a single type of topological objects. There are however some situations, still poorly understood, where two dual topological excitations fight to control the phase diagram and the transition. Finding experimental realization of such cases is thus of considerable interest. We show here that this situation occurs in BaCo$_2$V$_2$O$_8$, a spin-1/2 Ising-like quasi-one dimensional antiferromagnet when subjected to a uniform magnetic field transverse to the Ising axis. Using neutron scattering experiments, we measure a drastic modification of the quantum excitations beyond a critical value of the magnetic field. This quantum phase transition is identified, through a comparison with theoretical calculations, to be a transition between two different types of solitonic topological objects, which are captured by different components of the dynamical structure factor.
We report zero and longitudinal magnetic field muon spin relaxation measurements of the spin S=1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain material SrCuO2. We find that in a weak applied magnetic field B the spin-lattice relaxation rate follows a power law B^n with n=-0.9(3). This result is temperature independent for 5K < T < 300 K. Within conformal field theory and using the Muller ansatz we conclude ballistic spin transport in SrCuO2.
We report a heat switch effect in single crystals of an antiferromagnet Co$_3$V$_2$O$_8$, that is, the thermal conductivity ($kappa$) can be changed with magnetic field in an extremely large scale. Due to successive magnetic phase transitions at 12--6 K, the zero-field $kappa(T)$ displays a deep minimum at 6.7 K and rather small magnitude at low temperatures. Both the temperature and field dependencies of $kappa$ demonstrate that the phonons are strongly scattered at the regime of magnetic phase transitions. Magnetic field can suppress magnetic scattering effect and significantly recover the phonon thermal conductivity. In particular, a 14 T field along the $a$ axis increases the $kappa$ at 7.5 K up to 100 times. For $H parallel c$, the magnitude of $kappa$ can be suppressed down to $sim$ 8% at some field-induced transition and can be enhanced up to 20 times at 14 T. The present results demonstrate that it is possible to design a kind of heat switch in the family of magnetic materials.
The descloizite-type compound, SrMn(VO4)(OH), was synthesized as large single crystals using a high-temperature high-pressure hydrothermal technique. X-ray single crystal structure analysis reveals that the material crystallizes in the acentric orthorhombic space group of P212121. The structure exhibits a one-dimensional feature, with MnO4 chains propagating along the a-axis which are interconnected by VO4 tetrahedra. Raman and infrared spectra were obtained to identify the fundamental vanadate and hydroxide vibrational modes. Magnetization data reveal a broad maximum at approximately 80 K, arising from one-dimensional magnetic correlations with intrachain exchange constant of J/kB = 9.97(3) K between nearest Mn neighbors and a canted antiferromagnetic behavior below TN = 30 K. Single crystal neutron diffraction at 4 K yielded a magnetic structure solution in the lower symmetry of the magnetic space group P21 with two unique chains displaying antiferromagnetically ordered Mn moments oriented nearly perpendicular to the chain axis. The presence of the Dzyaloshinskii Moriya antisymmetric exchange interaction leads to a slight canting of the spins and gives rise to a weak ferromagnetic component along the chain direction.
The magnetic properties of the two-dimensional, S=1 honeycomb antiferromagnet BaNi$_2$V$_2$O$_8$ have been comprehensively studied using DC susceptibility measurements and inelastic neutron scattering techniques. The magnetic excitation spectrum is found to be dispersionless within experimental resolution between the honeycomb layers, while it disperses strongly within the honeycomb plane where it consists of two gapped spin-wave modes. The magnetic excitations are compared to linear spin-wave theory allowing the Hamiltonian to be determined. The first- and second-neighbour magnetic exchange interactions are antiferromagnetic and lie within the ranges 10.90meV$le$J$_n$$le$13.35 meV and 0.85meV$le$J$_{nn}$$le$1.65 meV respectively. The interplane coupling J$_{out}$ is four orders of magnitude weaker than the intraplane interactions, confirming the highly two-dimensional magnetic behaviour of this compound. The sizes of the energy gaps are used to extract the magnetic anisotropies and reveal substantial easy-plane anisotropy and a very weak in-plane easy-axis anisotropy. Together these results reveal that BaNi$_2$V$_2$O$_8$ is a candidate compound for the investigation of vortex excitations and Berezinsky-Kosterliz-Thouless phenomenona.