Behavior of the Breathing Pyrochlore Lattice Ba3Yb2Zn5O11 in Applied Magnetic Field

Published

October 19, 2018

Author(s)

J. G. Rau, L. S. Wu, A. F. May, A. E. Taylor, I-Lin Liu, J. Higgins, Nicholas Butch, K. A. Ross, H. S. Nair, M. D. Lumsden, M. J. P. Gingras, A. D. Christianson

Abstract

The breathing pyrochlore lattice material Ba₃Yb₂Zn₅O₁₁ exists in the nearly decoupled limit, in contrast to most other well-studied breathing pyrochlore compounds. Here we study the magnetic field dependent behavior of Ba₃Yb₂Zn₅O₁₁ at low temperatures as a further probe of the physics of this model system. Experimentally, we consider the behavior of pollycrystalline samples of Ba₃Yb₂Zn₅O₁₁ with a combination inelastic neutron scattering and heat capacity measurements down to 75 mK and up to fields of 10 T. Consistent with previous work the inelastic neutron scattering finds a level crossing near 3 T, but no significant dispersion of the spin excitations is detected up to the highest applied fields. Refinement of the theoretical model determined at zero field can reproduce much of the inelastic neutron scattering spectra and specific heat data. A notable exception is a low temperature peak in the specific heat at 0.1 K. This may indicate the scale of interactions between tetrahedra or may reflect undetected disorder in Ba₃Yb₂Zn₅O₁₁.

Citation

Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter

Volume

30

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

frustrated magnetism

Citation

Rau, J. , Wu, L. , May, A. , Taylor, A. , Liu, I. , Higgins, J. , Butch, N. , Ross, K. , Nair, H. , Lumsden, M. , Gingras, M. and Christianson, A. (2018), Behavior of the Breathing Pyrochlore Lattice Ba₃Yb₂Zn₅O₁₁ in Applied Magnetic Field, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=926390 (Accessed April 18, 2024)