Despite the conceptional importance of realizing spin liquids in solid states
only few compounds are known. On the other side the effect of lattice
distortions and anisotropies on the magnetic exchange topology and the
fluctuation spectrum are an interesting problem. We compare the excitation
spectra of the two s=1/2 kagome lattice compounds volborthite and vesignieite
using Raman scattering. We demonstrate that even small modifications of the
crystal structure may have a huge effect on the phonon spectrum and low
temperature properties.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure