Ground State Magnetic Structure and Magnetic Field Effects in the Layered Honeycomb Antiferromagnet YbOCl

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Main Authors: Zhang, Zheng, Cai, Yanzhen, Jiao, Jinlong, Kang, Jing, Yu, Dehong, Roessli, Bertrand, Zhang, Anmin, Ji, Jianting, Jin, Feng, Ma, Jie, Zhang, Qingming
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Zhang, Zheng
Cai, Yanzhen
Jiao, Jinlong
Kang, Jing
Yu, Dehong
Roessli, Bertrand
Zhang, Anmin
Ji, Jianting
Jin, Feng
Ma, Jie
Zhang, Qingming
author_facet Zhang, Zheng
Cai, Yanzhen
Jiao, Jinlong
Kang, Jing
Yu, Dehong
Roessli, Bertrand
Zhang, Anmin
Ji, Jianting
Jin, Feng
Ma, Jie
Zhang, Qingming
contents YbOCl is a representative member of the van der Waals layered honeycomb rare-earth chalcohalide REChX (RE = rare earth, Ch = O, S, Se, and Te, and X = F, Cl, Br, and I) family reported recently. Its spin ground state remains to be explored experimentally. In this paper, we have grown high-quality single crystals of YbOCl and conducted comprehensive thermodynamic, elastic, and inelastic neutron scattering experiments down to 50 mK. The experiments reveal an antiferromagnetic phase below 1.3 K, which is identified as a spin ground state with an intralayer ferromagnetic and interlayer antiferromagnetic ordering. By applying sophisticated numerical techniques to a honeycomb (nearest-neighbor)-triangle (next-nearest-neighbor) model Hamiltonian which accurately describes the highly anisotropic spin system, we are able to well simulate the experiments and determine the diagonal and off-diagonal spin-exchange interactions. The simulations give an antiferromagnetic Kitaev term comparable to the Heisenberg one. The experiments under magnetic fields allow us to establish a magnetic field-temperature phase diagram around the spin ground state. Most interestingly, a relatively small magnetic field (~ 0.3 to 3 T) can significantly suppress the antiferromagnetic order, suggesting an intriguing interplay of the Kitaev interaction and magnetic fields in the spin system. The present study provides fundamental insights into the highly anisotropic spin systems and opens a new window to look into Kitaev spin physics in a rare-earth-based system.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_10515
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Ground State Magnetic Structure and Magnetic Field Effects in the Layered Honeycomb Antiferromagnet YbOCl
Zhang, Zheng
Cai, Yanzhen
Jiao, Jinlong
Kang, Jing
Yu, Dehong
Roessli, Bertrand
Zhang, Anmin
Ji, Jianting
Jin, Feng
Ma, Jie
Zhang, Qingming
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Materials Science
YbOCl is a representative member of the van der Waals layered honeycomb rare-earth chalcohalide REChX (RE = rare earth, Ch = O, S, Se, and Te, and X = F, Cl, Br, and I) family reported recently. Its spin ground state remains to be explored experimentally. In this paper, we have grown high-quality single crystals of YbOCl and conducted comprehensive thermodynamic, elastic, and inelastic neutron scattering experiments down to 50 mK. The experiments reveal an antiferromagnetic phase below 1.3 K, which is identified as a spin ground state with an intralayer ferromagnetic and interlayer antiferromagnetic ordering. By applying sophisticated numerical techniques to a honeycomb (nearest-neighbor)-triangle (next-nearest-neighbor) model Hamiltonian which accurately describes the highly anisotropic spin system, we are able to well simulate the experiments and determine the diagonal and off-diagonal spin-exchange interactions. The simulations give an antiferromagnetic Kitaev term comparable to the Heisenberg one. The experiments under magnetic fields allow us to establish a magnetic field-temperature phase diagram around the spin ground state. Most interestingly, a relatively small magnetic field (~ 0.3 to 3 T) can significantly suppress the antiferromagnetic order, suggesting an intriguing interplay of the Kitaev interaction and magnetic fields in the spin system. The present study provides fundamental insights into the highly anisotropic spin systems and opens a new window to look into Kitaev spin physics in a rare-earth-based system.
title Ground State Magnetic Structure and Magnetic Field Effects in the Layered Honeycomb Antiferromagnet YbOCl
topic Strongly Correlated Electrons
Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.10515