2004/11/30 by A. B. Sushkov, Oleg Tchernyshyov, H. D. Drew +5 · 3 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Antiferromagnetism #Condensed matter physics #Frustration #Heisenberg model #Multiferroics and related materials #Phase (matter) #Phonon #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Pyrochlore #Quantum mechanics #Spin (aerodynamics) #Spin glass #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.94.137202
5 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2004/12/14 · openalex publication_date 2005/04/04 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
The spin-lattice coupling plays an important role in strongly frustrated magnets. In ZnCr2O4, an excellent realization of the Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the pyrochlore network, a lattice distortion relieves the geometrical frustration through a spin-Peierls-like phase transition at T(c)=12.5 K. Conversely, spin correlations strongly influence the elastic properties of a frustrated magnet. By using infrared spectroscopy and published data on magnetic specific heat, we demonstrate that the frequency of an optical phonon triplet in ZnCr2O4 tracks the nearest-neighbor spin correlations above T(c). The splitting of the phonon triplet below T(c) provides a way to measure the spin-Peierls order parameter.