Phase Diagram of α-RuCl3 in an In-Plane Magnetic Field

Published

May 31, 2017

Author(s)

J. A. Sears, Yang Zhao, Zhijun Xu, Jeffrey W. Lynn, Young-June Kim

Abstract

The low-temperature magnetic phases in the layered honeycomb lattice material α-RuCl₃ have been studied as a function of in-plane magnetic field. In zero field this material orders magnetically below 7 K with so-called zigzag order within the honeycomb planes. Neutron diffraction data show that a relatively small applied field of 2 T is sufficient to suppress the population of the magnetic domain in which the zigzag chains run along the field direction. We found that the intensity of the magnetic peaks due to zigzag chains run along the field direction. We found that the intensity of the magnetic peaks due to zigzag order is continuously suppressed with increasing field until their disappearance at υ₀H_c=8 T. At still higher fields (above 8 t) the zigzag order is destroyed, while bulk magnetization and heat capacity measurements suggest that the material enters a state with gapped magnetic excitations. We discuss the magnetic phase diagram obtained in our study in the context of a quantum phase transition.

Citation

Physical Review B

Volume

95

Issue

18

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Magnetic neutron diffraction, magnetic field dependence, Phase diagram, Kitaev model, domain selection, zigzag order

Citation

Sears, J. , Zhao, Y. , Xu, Z. , Lynn, J. and Kim, Y. (2017), Phase Diagram of α-RuCl₃ in an In-Plane Magnetic Field, Physical Review B, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=923101 (Accessed April 19, 2024)