2024/07/02 by Nashra Pistawala, Pistawala, Nashra, Luminita Harnagea +11
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2407.01982
openalex publication_date 2024/07/02 · openalex created_date 2024/07/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Here, we study YbI3, a quasi-2D layered material with Yb atoms arranged on an ideal honeycomb network of edge-sharing YbI6 octahedra, analogous to the low-temperature phase of α-RuCl3. High quality single crystals of YbI3 are grown from Yb and I as starting precursors, using the vapor transport technique. The grown crystals are characterized by single crystal x-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, magnetization, and heat capacity probes. The crystal-field split ground state of Yb3+ in \Yb~ is a well-isolated Kramers doublet with an effective moment \rm Jeff = 1/2. Upon cooling, the low-temperature heat capacity of \Yb~ reveals a broad peak at \rm T1 = 0.95~K due to short-range ordering of the Yb moments, followed by a sharp peak at \rm T2 = TN = 0.6~K due to long-range ordering. The magnetic behavior is found to be weakly anisotropic with χ^∥ > χ^⊥, where χ^∥ and χ^⊥ refers to the in-plane (H ∥ ab) and out-of-plane (H ⊥ ab) susceptibilities. The 2~K isothermal magnetization saturates at \rm ≈~1.5~μB/Yb3+ (in-plane) and \rm ≈~1~μB/Yb3+ (out-of-plane), suggesting the anisotropy to be easy-plane type. Low-temperature heat capacity, well below TN, is found to vary as Tα with α~≈~2.5, indicating a possible unconventional magnetic ground state for YbI3.