The bulk single crystals of $S = 1$ chain compound Ni(C$_3$H$_{10}$N$_2$)$_2$NO$_2$ClO$_4$ are grown by using a slow evaporation method at a constant temperature and a slow cooling method. It is found that the optimum condition of growing large cryst
als is via slow evaporation at 25 $^circ$C using 0.015 mol Ni(ClO$_4$)$_2$$cdot$6H$_2$O, 0.015 mol NaNO$_2$, and 0.03 mol 1,3-propanediamine liquid dissolved into 30 ml aqueous solvent. High-quality crystals with size up to $18 times 7.5 times 5$ mm$^3$ are obtained. The single crystals are characterized by measurements of x-ray diffraction, magnetic susceptibility, specific heat and thermal conductivity. The susceptibilities along three crystallographic axes are found to exhibit broad peaks at $sim 55$ K, and then decrease abruptly to zero at lower temperatures, which is characteristic of a Haldane chain system. The specific heat and the thermal conductivity along the $c$ axis can be attributed to the simple phononic contribution and are analyzed using the Debye approximation.
We study the low-temperature heat transport, as well as the magnetization and the specific heat, of TmMnO_3 single crystals to probe the transitions of magnetic structure induced by magnetic field. It is found that the low-T thermal conductivity (kap
pa) shows strong magnetic-field dependence and the overall behaviors can be understood in the scenario of magnetic scattering on phonons. In addition, a strong dip-like feature shows up in kappa(H) isotherms at 3.5--4 T for H parallel c, which is related to a known spin re-orientation of Mn^{3+} moments. The absence of this phenomenon for H parallel a indicates that the magnetic-structure transition of TmMnO_3 cannot be driven by the in-plane field. In comparison, the magnetothermal conductivity of TmMnO_3 is much larger than that of YMnO_3 but smaller than that of HoMnO_3, indicating that the magnetisms of rare-earth ions are playing the key role in the spin-phonon coupling of the hexagonal manganites.
We report a study of the low-temperature heat transport in the quasi-one-dimensional S = 1/2 alternating antiferromagnetic-ferromagnetic chain compound (CH_{3})_{2}NH_{2}CuCl_{3}. Both the temperature and magnetic-field dependencies of thermal conduc
tivity are very complicated, pointing to the important role of spin excitations. It is found that magnetic excitations act mainly as the phonon scatterers in a broad temperature region from 0.3 to 30 K. In magnetic fields, the thermal conductivity show drastic changes, particularly at the field-induced transitions from the low-field N{e}el state to the spin-gapped state, the field-induced magnetic ordered state, and the spin polarized state. In high fields, the phonon conductivity is significantly enhanced because of the weakening of spin fluctuations.
We report the study on the low-temperature heat transport of Ba_3Mn_2O_8 single crystal, a layered spin-dimer compound exhibiting the magnetic-field-induced magnetic order or the magnon Bose-Einstein condensation. The thermal conductivities (kappa) a
long both the ab plane and the c axis show nearly isotropic dependence on magnetic field, that is, kappa is strongly suppressed with increasing field, particularly at the critical fields of magnetic phase transitions. These results indicate that the magnetic excitations play a role of scattering phonons and the scattering effect is enhanced when the magnetic field closes the gap in the spin spectrum. In addition, the magnons in the BEC state of this materials do not show notable ability of carrying heat.
We report the magnetic-field dependence of thermal conductivity (kappa) of an insulating cuprate Nd_2CuO_4 at very low temperatures down to 0.3 K. It is found that apart from the paramagnetic moments scattering on phonons, the Nd^{3+} magnons can act
as either heat carriers or phonon scatterers, which strongly depends on the long-range antiferromagnetic transition and the field-induced transitions of spin structure. In particular, the Nd^{3+} magnons can effectively transport heat in the spin-flopped state of the Nd^{3+} sublattice. However, both the magnon transport and the magnetic scattering are quenched at very high fields. The spin re-orientations under the in-plane field can be conjectured from the detailed field dependence of kappa.
We report a study of the low-temperature thermal conductivity (kappa) of pure and Zn-doped LiCu_2O_2 single crystals. The kappa(T) of pure LiCu_2O_2 single crystal shows a double-peak behavior, with two peaks locating at 48 K and 14 K, respectively.
The different dependences of the peaks on the Zn concentration indicate that the high-T peak is likely due to the phonon transport while the low-T one is attributed to the magnon transport in the spin spiral ordering state. In addition, the magnetic field can gradually suppress the low-T peak but does not affect the high-T one; this further confirms that the low-T peak is originated from the magnon heat transport.
The low-temperature thermal conductivity (kappa) of GdFeO_3 single crystals is found to be strongly dependent on magnetic field. The low-field kappa (H) curves show two dips for H parallel a and only one dip for H parallel c, with the characteristic
fields having good correspondence with the spin-flop and the spin-polarization transitions. A remarkable phenomenon is that the subKelvin thermal conductivity shows hysteretic behaviors on the history of applying magnetic field, that is, the kappa(H) isotherms measured with field increasing are larger than those with field decreasing. Intriguingly, the broad region of magnetic field (sim 0--3 T) showing the irreversibility of heat transport coincides with that presenting the ferroelectricity. It is discussed that the irreversible kappa(H) behaviors are due to the phonon scattering by ferroelectric domain walls. This result shows an experimental feature that points to the capability of controlling the ferroelectric domain structures by magnetic field in multiferroic materials.
We study the low-temperature heat transport of HoMnO_3 single crystals to probe the magnetic structures and their transitions induced by magnetic field. It is found that the low-T thermal conductivity (kappa) shows very strong magnetic-field dependen
ce, with the strongest suppression of nearly 90% and the biggest increase of 20 times of kappa compared to its zero-field value. In particular, some ``dip-like features show up in kappa(H) isotherms for field along both the ab plane and the c axis. These behaviors are found to shed new light on the complex H-T phase diagram and the field-induced re-orientations of Mn^{3+} and Ho^{3+} spin structures. The results also demonstrate a significant spin-phonon coupling in this multiferroic compound.
