Incommensurate Spin Order in the Frustrated Kagome Staircase Compound Ni3V2O8
Abstract
Strongly-correlated quantum spin systems with competing interactions can have a large number of degenerate ground state configurations with unusual spin fluctuations. Anisotropic interactions can then favor a subset of spin configurations and new ground states can emerge. An example of such a system is Ni3V2O8, which contains weakly-coupled S=1 Kagome staircase lattices with inequivalent bonds due to the crystal symmetry. Specific heat and magnetization measurements revealed four magnetic zero-field transitions below T=9K. We performed powder and single-crystal neutron diffraction experiments to identify the magnetic structures and the relevant interactions. We observed that Ni3V2O8 adopts three different magnetic structures as a function of temperature, involving only Ni lying on spines of the Kagome lattice running along a crystallographic axis. The low-temperature phase is commensurate with the lattice, followed by two incommensurate structures at higher temperatures. We show that the structures may be stabilized by next-nearest neighbor and anisotropic spin interactions, which arise naturally in this structure and introduce a new route for relieving frustration.
- Publication:
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APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- March 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004APS..MARN25001K