1,314 research outputs found
The monoclinic crystal structure of -RuCl and the zigzag antiferromagnetic ground state
The layered honeycomb magnet alpha-RuCl3 has been proposed as a candidate to
realize a Kitaev spin model with strongly frustrated, bond-dependent,
anisotropic interactions between spin-orbit entangled jeff=1/2 Ru4+ magnetic
moments. Here we report a detailed study of the three-dimensional crystal
structure using x-ray diffraction on untwinned crystals combined with
structural relaxation calculations. We consider several models for the stacking
of honeycomb layers and find evidence for a crystal structure with a monoclinic
unit cell corresponding to a stacking of layers with a unidirectional in-plane
offset, with occasional in-plane sliding stacking faults, in contrast with the
currently-assumed trigonal 3-layer stacking periodicity. We report electronic
band structure calculations for the monoclinic structure, which find support
for the applicability of the jeff=1/2 picture once spin orbit coupling and
electron correlations are included. We propose that differences in the
magnitude of anisotropic exchange along symmetry inequivalent bonds in the
monoclinic cell could provide a natural mechanism to explain the spin gap
observed in powder inelastic neutron scattering, in contrast to spin models
based on the three-fold symmetric trigonal structure, which predict a gapless
spectrum within linear spin wave theory. Our susceptibility measurements on
both powders and stacked crystals, as well as neutron powder diffraction show a
single magnetic transition at TN ~ 13K. The analysis of the neutron data
provides evidence for zigzag magnetic order in the honeycomb layers with an
antiferromagnetic stacking between layers. Magnetization measurements on
stacked single crystals in pulsed field up to 60T show a single transition
around 8T for in-plane fields followed by a gradual, asymptotic approach to
magnetization saturation, as characteristic of strongly anisotropic exchange
interactions.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, published in Physical Review
Spin Glass and ferromagnetism in disordered Cerium compounds
The competition between spin glass, ferromagnetism and Kondo effect is
analysed here in a Kondo lattice model with an inter-site random coupling
between the localized magnetic moments given by a generalization of
the Mattis model which represents an interpolation between ferromagnetism and a
highly disordered spin glass. Functional integral techniques with Grassmann
fields have been used to obtain the partition function. The static
approximation and the replica symmetric ansatz have also been used. The
solution of the problem is presented as a phase diagram giving {\it
versus} where is the temperature, and are the
strengths of the intrasite Kondo and the intersite random couplings,
respectively. If is small, when temperature is decreased, there is a
second order transition from a paramagnetic to a spin glass phase. For lower
, a first order transition appears between the spin glass phase and a
region where there are Mattis states which are thermodynamically equivalent to
the ferromagnetism. For very low , the Mattis states become stable. On
the other hand, it is found as solution a Kondo state for large
values. These results can improve the theoretical description of the well known
experimental phase diagram of .Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, accepted Phys. Rev.
Experimental investigation of the competing orders and quantum criticality in hole- and electron-doped cuprate superconductors
We investigate the issues of competing orders and quantum criticality in cuprate superconductors via experimental studies of the high-field thermodynamic phase diagrams and the quasiparticle tunneling spectroscopy. Substantial field-induced quantum fluctuations are found in all cuprates investigated, and the corresponding correlation with quasiparticle spectra suggest that both electron- (n-type) and hole-doped (p-type) cuprate superconductors are in close proximity to a quantum critical point that separates a pure superconducting (SC) phase from a phase consisting of coexisting SC and a competing order. We further suggests that the relevant competing order is likely a spin-density wave (SDW) or a charge density wave (CDW), which can couple efficiently to an in-plane Cu-O bond stretching longitudinal optical (LO) phonon mode in the p-type cuprates but not in the n-type cuprates. This cooperative interaction may account for the pseudogap phenomenon above T, only in the p-type cuprate superconductors
Low temperature specific heat of the heavy fermion superconductor PrOsSb
We report the magnetic field dependence of the low temperature specific heat
of single crystals of the first Pr-based heavy fermion superconductor
PrOsSb. The low temperature specific heat and the magnetic phase
diagram inferred from specific heat, resistivity and magnetisation provide
compelling evidence of a doublet ground state and hence superconductivity
mediated by quadrupolar fluctuations. This establishes PrOsSb as a
very strong contender of superconductive pairing that is neither
electron-phonon nor magnetically mediated.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Bose-Einstein Condensation of S = 1 Ni spin degrees of freedom in NiCl2-4SC(NH2)2
It has recently been suggested that the organic compound
NiCl-4SC(NH) (DTN) exhibits Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) of the
Ni spin degrees of freedom for fields applied along the tetragonal c-axis. The
Ni spins exhibit 3D XY-type antiferromagnetic order above a field-induced
quantum critical point at T. The Ni spin fluid can be
characterized as a system of effective bosons with a hard-core repulsive
interaction in which the antiferromagnetic state corresponds to a Bose-Einstein
condensate (BEC) of the phase coherent Ni spin system. We have
investigated the the high-field phase diagram and the occurrence of BEC in DTN
by means of specific heat and magnetocaloric effect measurements to dilution
refrigerator temperatures. Our results indicate that a key prediction of BEC is
satisfied; the magnetic field-temperature quantum phase transition line
approaches a power-law at low temperatures,
with an exponent at the quantum critical point,
consistent with the BEC theory prediction of .Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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