3 research outputs found
Gapless spin-liquid state in the structurally disorder-free triangular antiferromagnet NaYbO
We present the structural characterization and low-temperature magnetism of
the triangular-lattice delafossite NaYbO. Synchrotron x-ray diffraction and
neutron scattering exclude both structural disorder and crystal-electric-field
randomness, whereas heat-capacity measurements and muon spectroscopy reveal the
absence of magnetic order and persistent spin dynamics down to at least 70\,mK.
Continuous magnetic excitations with the low-energy spectral weight
accumulating at the -point of the Brillouin zone indicate the formation of a
novel spin-liquid phase in a triangular antiferromagnet. This phase is gapless
and shows a non-trivial evolution of the low-temperature specific heat. Our
work demonstrates that NaYbO practically gives the most direct experimental
access to the spin-liquid physics of triangular antiferromagnets.Comment: 6 pages, 4figure
Role of alkaline metal in the rare-earth triangular antiferromagnet KYbO
We report crystal structure and magnetic behavior of the triangular
antiferromagnet KYbO, the A-site substituted version of the quantum spin
liquid candidate NaYbO. The replacement of Na by K introduces an
anisotropic tensile strain with 1.6% in-plane and 12.1% out-of-plane lattice
expansion. Compared to NaYbO, both Curie-Weiss temperature and saturation
field are reduced by about 20% as the result of the increased Yb--O--Yb angles,
whereas the -tensor of Yb becomes isotropic with .
Field-dependent magnetization shows the plateau at 1/2 of the saturated value
and suggests the formation of the up-up-up-down field-induced order in the
triangular AYbO oxides (A = alkali metal), in contrast to the isostructural
selenides that exhibit the 1/3 plateau and the up-up-down field-induced order