Local magnetism and spin dynamics of the frustrated honeycomb rhodate Li2RhO3

Khuntia, P.; Manni, S.; Foronda, F.R.; Lancaster, T.; Blundell, S.J.; Gegenwart, P.; Baenitz, M.

Abstract

We reportmagnetization, heat capacity, 7Li nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and muon-spin rotation (μSR) measurements on the honeycomb 4d5 spin liquid candidate Li2RhO3. The magnetization in small magnetic fields provides evidence of the partial spin-freezing of a small fraction of Rh4+ moments at 6 K, whereas the Curie-Weiss behavior above 100 K suggests a pseudo-spin-1/2 paramagnet with a moment of about 2.2μB. The magnetic specific heat (Cm) exhibits no field dependence and demonstrates the absence of long-range magnetic order down to 0.35 K. Cm/T passes through a broad maximum at about 10 K and Cm ∝ T 2 at low temperatures. Measurements of the spin-lattice relaxation rate (1/T1) reveal a gapless slowing-down of spin fluctuations upon cooling with 1/T1 ∼ T 2.2. The results from NMR and μSR are consistent with a scenario in which a minority of Rh4+ moments are in a short-range correlated frozen state and coexist with a majority of moments in a liquid-like state that continue to fluctuate at low temperatures.

Citation

Khuntia, P., Manni, S., Foronda, F., Lancaster, T., Blundell, S., Gegenwart, P., & Baenitz, M. (2017). Local magnetism and spin dynamics of the frustrated honeycomb rhodate Li2RhO3. Physical Review B, 96(9), Article 094432. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.96.094432

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 6, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Sep 25, 2017
• Publication Date: Sep 25, 2017
• Deposit Date: Sep 26, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 6, 2017
• Journal: Physical Review B
• Print ISSN: 2469-9950
• Electronic ISSN: 2469-9969
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 96
• Issue: 9
• Article Number: 094432
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.96.094432
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1348565
• Related Public URLs: https://arxiv.org/abs/1512.04904