2024/05/22 by Shengzhi Zhang, Zhang, Shengzhi, Sangyun Lee +11
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Algebraic structures and combinatorial models #FOS: Physical sciences #Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2405.13935
openalex publication_date 2024/05/22 · openalex created_date 2024/05/26 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We have investigated the magnetic properties and mapped out the phase diagram of the honeycomb magnet Na2Co2TeO6 with Co 3d7 in out-of-plane magnetic fields. This material has previously been proposed to show nearest-neighbor Kitaev interactions between Co spins and maybe even Kitaev quantum spin liquid behavior in high fields. At low magnetic fields, we observe a thermal phase transition at TN = 27 K, transitioning from a paramagnetic state to a canonical ferrimagnetic state. Under the application of magnetic fields, a spin flop-like phase transition occurred before saturation of J = 1/2 between 10 K and TN. Below 10 K, a peak-dip-peak structure emerges between 10 and 17 T in the magnetic susceptibility (dM/dH) before the magnetic saturation, reminiscent of magnetic plateau behavior. The measurement of the magnetocaloric effect also shows dip-peak-dip behavior in this field range. Our data can be explained by an XXZ model with a single ion anisotropy and possibly small Kitaev and Γ exchange interactions. We also unambiguously determined the magnetization saturation field that helps constrain the energy scale of the exchange interactions