Magnetic order in a frustrated triangular-lattice rare-earth antiferromagnet

We propose neutron powder diffraction measurements to determine the ground state magnetic structure in the layered frustrated magnet CuNdO2, where Kramers Nd3+ ions with effective spin-1/2 form a triangular lattice with frustrated antiferromagnetic couplings (filled-shell Cu+ ions are non-magnetic). We have a well-characterized powder sample where thermodynamic measurements evidence onset of long-range magnetic order below 0.8 K, so we apply for the He3 low-temperature insert and WISH to determine the magnetic structure. Related research on Nd3+ ions in similar crystal-field environments suggests an Ising-like character, which would make the material an ideal candidate to explore the physics of Ising frustration in the presence of a sizeable exchange interactions, where the excitations spectrum could also be probed experimentally, in contrast to other candidate Ising triangular systems where the interaction scale is an order of magnitude smaller and therefore experimentally not accessible with current INS spectrometers.