Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and single-crystal neutron scattering were used to study in detail the structural properties of the Cs2CuCl(4-x)Br(x) series, good realizations of layered triangular antiferromagnets. Detailed temperature-dependent PXR
D reveal a pronounced anisotropy of the thermal expansion for the three different crystal directions of the orthorhombic structure without any structural phase transition down to 20 K. Remarkably, the anisotropy of the thermal expansion varies for different $x$, leading to distinct changes of the geometry of the local Cu environment as a function of temperature and composition. The refinement of the atomic positions confirms that for x=1 and 2, the Br atoms occupy distinct halogen sites in the [CuX4]-tetrahedra (X = Cl, Br). The precise structure data are used to calculate the magnetic exchange couplings using density functional methods for x=0. We observe a pronounced temperature dependence of the calculated magnetic exchange couplings, reflected in the strong sensitivity of the magnetic exchange couplings on structural details. These calculations are in good agreement with the experimentally established values for Cs2CuCl4 if one takes the low-temperature structure data as a starting point.
In view of the continuous theoretical efforts aimed at an accurate microscopic description of the strongly correlated transition metal oxides and related materials, we show that with continuum quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations it is possible to
obtain the value of the spin superexchange coupling constant of a copper oxide in a quantitatively excellent agreement with experiment. The variational nature of the QMC total energy allows us to identify the best trial wave function out of the available pool of wave functions, which makes the approach essentially free from adjustable parameters and thus truly ab initio. The present results on magnetic interactions suggest that QMC is capable of accurately describing ground state properties of strongly correlated materials.
We investigate the electronic and magnetic properties of the frustrated triangular-lattice antiferromagnets Cs$_2$CuCl$_4$ and Cs$_2$CuBr$_4$ in the framework of density functional theory. Analysis of the exchange couplings J and J using the availabl
e X-ray structural data corroborates the values obtained from experimental results for Cs$_2$CuBr$_4$ but not for Cs$_2$CuCl$_4$. In order to understand this discrepancy, we perform a detailed study of the effect of structural optimization on the exchange couplings of Cs$_2$CuCl$_4$ employing different exchange-correlation functionals. We find that the exchange couplings depend on rather subtle details of the structural optimization and that only when the insulating state (mediated through spin polarization) is present in the structural optimization, we do have good agreement between the calculated and the experimentally determined exchange couplings. Finally, we discuss the effect of interlayer couplings as well as longer-ranged couplings in both systems.
