No Arabic abstract
We study spin liquid in the frustrated diamond lattice antiferromagnet CoAl2O4 by means of single crystal neutron scattering in zero and applied magnetic field. The magnetically ordered phase appearing below TN=8 K remains nonconventional down to 1.5 K. The magnetic Bragg peaks at the q=0 positions remain broad and their profiles have strong Lorentzian contribution. Additionally, they are connected by weak diffuse streaks along the <111> directions. These observations are explained within the spiral spin liquid model as short-range magnetic correlations of spirals populated at these finite temperatures, as the energy minimum around q=0 is flat and the energy of excited states with q=(111) is low. The agreement is only qualitative, leading us to suspect that microstructure effects are also important. Magnetic field significantly perturbs spin correlations. The 1.5 K static magnetic moment increases from 1.58 mB/Co at zero field to 2.08 mB/Co at 10 T, while the magnetic peaks, being still broad, acquire almost Gaussian profile. Spin excitations are rather conventional spin waves at zero field, resulting in the exchange parameters J1=0.92(1) meV, J2=0.101(2) meV and the anisotropy term D=-0.0089(2) meV for CoAl2O4. The application of a magnetic field leads to a pronounced broadening of the excitations at the zone center, which at 10 T appear gapless and nearly featureless.
CoAl2O4 spinel with magnetic Co2+ ions on the diamond A-lattice is known to be magnetically frustrated. We compare neutron single crystal diffraction patterns measured in zero and applied magnetic fields with the ones obtained from classical Monte-Carlo models. In simulations we test the influence of various parameters on diffraction patterns: the ratio of nearest-, J1, and next-nearest, J2, neighbor interactions, magnetic field applied along the principal crystallographic directions, and random disorder on the A(Co2+)- and B(Al3+)- sites. We conclude that the models considered so far explain the broadening of magnetic Bragg peaks in zero magnetic field and their anisotropic response to applied magnetic field only partly. As bulk properties of our single crystal are isotropic, we suggest that its microstructure, specifically <111>-twin boundaries, could be a reason of the nonconventional magnetic order in CoAl2O4.
We report the discovery of a spin one diamond lattice in NiRh2O4. This spinel undergoes a cubic to tetragonal phase transition at T = 440 K that leaves all nearest neighbor interactions equivalent. In the tetragonal phase, magnetization measurements show a Ni2+ effective moment of p(eff) = 3.3(1) and dominant antiferromagnetic interactions with {Theta}(CW) = -11.3(7) K. No phase transition to a long-range magnetically ordered state is observed by specific heat measurements down to T = 0.1 K. Inelastic neutron scattering measurements on sub-stoichiometric NiRh2O4 reveal possible valence-bond behavior and show no visible signs of magnetic ordering. NiRh2O4 provides a platform on which to explore the previously unknown and potentially rich physics of spin one interacting on the diamond lattice, including the realization of theoretically predicted quantum spin liquid and topological paramagnet states.
Here we present a neutron scattering-based study of magnetic excitations and magnetic order in NaYbO$_2$ under the application of an external magnetic field. The crystal electric field-split $J = 7/2$ multiplet structure is determined, revealing a mixed $|m_z>$ ground state doublet and is consistent with a recent report Ding et al. [1]. Our measurements further suggest signatures of exchange effects in the crystal field spectrum, manifested by a small splitting in energy of the transition into the first excited doublet. The field-dependence of the low-energy magnetic excitations across the transition from the quantum disordered ground state into the fluctuation-driven ordered regime is analyzed. Signs of a first-order phase transition into a noncollinear ordered state are revealed at the upper-field phase boundary of the ordered regime, and higher order magnon scattering, suggestive of strong magnon-magnon interactions, is resolved within the previously reported $up-up-down$ phase. Our results reveal a complex phase diagram of field-induced order and spin excitations within NaYbO$_2$ and demonstrate the dominant role of quantum fluctuations cross a broad range of fields within its interlayer frustrated triangular lattice.
YbMgGaO$_{4}$, a structurally perfect two-dimensional triangular lattice with odd number of electrons per unit cell and spin-orbit entangled effective spin-1/2 local moments of Yb$^{3+}$ ions, is likely to experimentally realize the quantum spin liquid ground state. We report the first experimental characterization of single crystal YbMgGaO$_{4}$ samples. Due to the spin-orbit entanglement, the interaction between the neighboring Yb$^{3+}$ moments depends on the bond orientations and is highly anisotropic in the spin space. We carry out the thermodynamic and the electron spin resonance measurements to confirm the anisotropic nature of the spin interaction as well as to quantitatively determine the couplings. Our result is a first step towards the theoretical understanding of the possible quantum spin liquid ground state in this system and sheds new lights on the search of quantum spin liquids in strong spin-orbit coupled insulators.
We report muSR experiments on Mg{x}Cu{4-x}(OH)6Cl2 with x sim 1, a new material isostructural to Herbertsmithite exhibiting regular kagome planes of spin 1/2 (Cu^{2+}), and therefore a candidate for a spin liquid ground state. We evidence the absence of any magnetic ordering down to 20 mK (sim J/10^4). We investigate in detail the spin dynamics on well characterized samples in zero and applied longitudinal fields and propose a low T defect based interpretation to explain the unconventional dynamics observed in the quantum spin liquid phase.