2020/12/31 by Christian Balz, Lukas Janssen, Paula Lampen-Kelley +6 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.103.174417
published as Phys. Rev. B 103, 174417 (2021) · This article supersedes arXiv:1807.06192 which proposed that the intermediate-field ordered phase displays an in-plane magnetic order different from zigzag
arxiv created 2021/02/17 · arxiv updated 2021/05/18
In α-RuCl3, an external magnetic field applied within the honeycomb plane can induce a transition from a magnetically ordered state to a disordered state that is potentially related to the Kitaev quantum spin liquid. In zero field, single crystals with minimal stacking faults display a low-temperature state with in-plane zigzag antiferromagnetic order and a three-layer periodicity in the direction perpendicular to the honeycomb planes. Here, we present angle-dependent magnetization, ac susceptibility, and thermal transport data that demonstrate the presence of an additional intermediate-field ordered state at fields below the transition to the disordered phase. Neutron diffraction results show that the magnetic structure in this phase is characterized by a six-layer periodicity in the direction perpendicular to the honeycomb planes. Theoretically, the intermediate ordered phase can be accounted for by including spin-anisotropic couplings between the layers in a three-dimensional spin model. Together, this demonstrates the importance of interlayer exchange interactions in α-RuCl3.