Spin properties of triangular-lattice rare-earth compounds K<sub>2</sub>CsYb(PO<sub>4</sub>)<sub>2</sub> and K<sub>2</sub>CsEr(PO<sub>4</sub>)<sub>2</sub>

ORAL

Abstract

On the way to discover frustrated magnetic materials that realize unconventional phases of matter such as spin liquids, recent attention has been devoted to triangular-lattice materials comprising lanthanoid atoms. Here we report our detailed study of two such rare-earth-based compounds K2CsYb(PO4)2 and K2CsEr(PO4)2, where the magnetic ions form equilateral triangular lattices and where site mixing/distortion effects are absent. In spite of the limited size of the single crystals that we could obtain, we conducted detailed thermo-magnetic and inelastic neutron scattering (INS) studies unravelling the spin dynamics and crystal electric field effects in these systems. Our results indicate that exchange interactions are weak and magnetic excitations essentially accounted for by weakly coupled paramagnetic anisotropic effective spin degrees of freedom. We hope our research will benefit future efforts in this exciting line of research.

*The work at Georgia Institute of Technology was supported by NSF-DMR-1750186. The work at University of Tennessee, Knoxville was supported by NSF-DMR-1350002.

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Presenters

  • Luwei Ge

    • Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology

Authors

  • Luwei Ge

    • Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology

  • Qing Huang

    • University of Tennessee
    • Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Tennessee
    • University of Tennessee, Knoxville
    • Department of Physics, University of Tennessee
    • Physics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

  • Zhiling Dun

    • Georgia Inst of Tech
    • School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology
    • Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology
    • Georgia Institute of Technology

  • Haidong Zhou

    • University of Tennessee
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
    • University of Knoxville, Tennessee
    • Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Tennessee
    • University of Tennesse, Knoxville
    • Physics and anstronomy, University of Tennessee
    • Department of Physics, University of Tennessee
    • Physics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
    • University of Tennessee, Knoxville

  • Martin Mourigal

    • Georgia Inst of Tech
    • School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology
    • Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology
    • Georgia Institute of Technology