2018/04/30 by L. M. Volkova, L M Volkova, D. V. Marinin +1 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Antiferromagnetism #Copper-based nanomaterials and applications #Crystal structure #Ion #Lattice (music) #Lone pair #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Pyrochlore #Spin ice #Tetrahedron #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1361-648x/aade0b
published as J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 30 (2018) 425801 (23pp) · 32 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables
openalex created_date 2018/05/07 · openalex publication_date 2018/08/31 · arxiv created 2018/10/19 · arxiv updated 2018/10/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract The objective of the present work was to analyze the possibility of realization of quantum spin liquids in three volcanic minerals—averievite (Cu 5 O 2 (VO 4 ) 2 (CuCl)), ilinskite (NaCu 5 O 2 (SeO 3 ) 2 Cl 3 ), and avdononite (K 2 Cu 5 Cl 8 (OH) 4 ·2H 2 O)—from the crystal chemistry point of view. Based on the structural data, the sign and strength of magnetic interactions have been calculated and the geometric frustrations serving as the main reason of the existence of spin liquids have been investigated. According to our calculations, the magnetic structures of averievite and ilinskite are composed of antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin-frustrated layers of corner-sharing Cu 4 tetrahedra on the kagome lattice. However, the direction of nonshared corners of tetrahedra is different in them. The oxygen ions centering the OCu 4 tetrahedra in averievite and ilinskite provide the main contribution to the formation of AFM interactions along the tetrahedra edges. The local electric polarization in averievite and the possibility of spin configuration fluctuations due to vibrations of tetrahedra-centering oxygen ions have been discussed. The existence of structural phase transitions accompanied with magnetic transitions was assumed in ilinskite because of the effect of a lone electron pair by Se 4+ ions. As was demonstrated through comparison of averievite and avdoninite, at the removal of centering oxygen ions from tetrahedra, the magnetic structure of the pyrochlore layer present in averievite transformed into an openwork curled net with large cells woven from corner-sharing open AFM spin-frustrated tetrahedra (‘butterflies’) in avdoninite.