Magnetic order in a new hyperhoneycomb antiferromagnet

This proposal is to measure the magnetic diffraction in powder and single crystals of a novel hyperhoneycomb lattice antiferromagnet that we have recently succeeded in synthesizing for the first time. Here spin-orbit coupled Pr4+ ions interact on a three-dimensional hyperhoneycomb lattice with three-coordination as the planar honeycomb, but bond rotations make it a fully three-dimensional network. This is theoretically proposed to realize long-sought antiferromagnetic Kitaev interactions, expected to stabilize an exotic quantum spin liquid region for high applied magnetic fields, never explored experimentally before. Susceptibility and heat capacity provide evidence for magnetic long-range order at low temperatures and here we propose to use WISH to measure the magnetic diffraction to solve the ground state magnetic structure, required before exploring the magnetic-field behaviour.

本研究提案旨在针对我们近期首次成功合成的新型超蜂窝晶格反铁磁体，对其粉末与单晶样品开展磁衍射测量。该体系中，自旋轨道耦合的四价镨（Pr⁴+）离子于三维超蜂窝晶格上发生相互作用；该晶格的平面配位为三配位蜂窝结构，而键的旋转使其成为完整的三维互联网络。该体系在理论上被预言可实现长期以来备受关注的反铁磁性基耶夫（Kitaev）相互作用，有望在高外加磁场下稳定出迄今尚未被实验探索过的奇异量子自旋液相。磁化率与热容测量已证实该体系在低温下存在磁长程有序；本提案计划使用WISH开展磁衍射测量，以解析其基态磁结构——这是后续探索磁场响应行为的必要前提。