2012/12/31 by Alexander A. Tsirlin, Oleg Janson, Stefan Lebernegg +2
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.87.064404
published as Phys. Rev. B 87, 064404 (2013) · 10 pages, 10 figures + Supplementary Information
openalex publication_date 2013/02/05 · arxiv created 2013/02/14 · arxiv updated 2013/02/15 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report on the quasi-two-dimensional magnetism of the natural mineral diaboleite Pb2Cu(OH)4Cl2 with a tetragonal crystal structure, which is closely related to that of the frustrated spin-(1)/(2) magnet PbVO3. Magnetic susceptibility of diaboleite is well described by a Heisenberg spin model on a diluted square lattice with the nearest-neighbor exchange of J\ensuremath≃35 K and about 5% of nonmagnetic impurities. The dilution of the spin lattice reflects the formation of Cu vacancies that are tolerated by the crystal structure of diaboleite. The weak coupling between the magnetic planes triggers the long-range antiferromagnetic order below TN\ensuremath≃11 K. No evidence of magnetic frustration is found. We also analyze the signatures of the long-range order in heat-capacity data, and discuss the capability of identifying magnetic transitions with heat-capacity measurements.