Investigating the Effective Spin 1/2 Crystal Field Dynamics in CeVO4 via Inelastic Neutron Scattering

Three -dimensional (3D) spin systems with strong interplay of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and non-cubic crystal electric field (CEF) leads to effective spin (Jeff) – ½ ground state at low temperatures which offers a platform to realize quantum magnetism and novel quantum spin liquid (QSL) state. A QSL state is an exotic state of matter with absence of magnetic order, long-range entanglement, coherent/dynamic fluctuation of spins, and the preservation of local symmetries despite strong exchange interaction between spins. In the context of Jeff – ½ magnetic ground state, a rare-earth orthovanadate, CeVO4 had been shown to be a potential candidate. Since in CeVO4, Ce3+ has total angular momentum (J) = 5/2 and this six-fold degenerate state is split into three Kramer doublets by the D2d crystal field. By doing the Inelastic Neutron Scattering (INS) measurements, we want to probe the CEF spectra and visualize the magnetic excitations corresponding to the first and second excited doublet. By evaluating the integrated intensity as a function of energy at a particular temperature, we wish to find the intensity and position of the excitations. Further, we also want to do simultaneous fit to INS spectra at various temperatures together with the magnetic susceptibility and heat capacity data to obtain the unique set of CEF parameters.