- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review B

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Letter
  • Open Access

Braided Ising spin-tube physics in a purported kagome magnet

J. Nagl1,*, D. Flavián1, B. Duncan1, S. Hayashida2, O. Zaharko3, E. Ressouche4, J. Ollivier5, Z. Yan1, S. Gvasaliya1 et al.

A. Zheludev1,†

  • 1Laboratory for Solid State Physics, ETH Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland
  • 2Neutron Science and Technology Center, Comprehensive Research Organization for Science and Society (CROSS), Tokai, Ibaraki 319-1106, Japan
  • 3Laboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging, PSI Center for Neutron and Muon Sciences, Forschungsstrasse 111, 5232 Villigen, PSI, Switzerland
  • 4Université Grenoble Alpes, CEA, IRIG, MEM, MDN, 38000 Grenoble, France
  • 5Institut Laue-Langevin, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, CS 20156, 38042 Grenoble Cedex 9, France

  • *Contact author: jnagl@ethz.ch
  • †Contact author: zhelud@ethz.ch; http://www.neutron.ethz.ch/
PDF

Phys. Rev. B 111, L180406 – Published 16 May, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.111.L180406

Abstract

The magnetic insulator Nd3BWO9 has been previously proposed to realize the highly frustrated breathing kagome lattice model. We report a combination of single-crystal neutron scattering studies and numerical simulations that debunk this interpretation. We show that it is the interplane couplings that determine the physics. To explain the exotic magnetism, we derive a simple one-dimensional Ising model composed of twisted triangular spin tubes, i.e., triple braids of Ising spin chains with almost-orthogonal anisotropy frames and competing ferro-antiferromagnetic interactions. This model can account for the ground state, excitations, the numerous field-induced fractional magnetization plateau phases, and incommensurate magnetic correlations at elevated temperatures. Nd3BWO9 constitutes a rare example where rich magnetic phenomena can be understood and simulated quantitatively in terms of a simple classical Hamiltonian.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (37)

  1. H. T. Diep, Frustrated Spin Systems, 3rd ed. (World Scientific, Singapore, 2020).
  2. A. Zorko, M. Pregelj, M. Klanjšek, M. Gomilšek, Z. Jagličić, J. S. Lord, J. A. T. Verezhak, T. Shang, W. Sun, and J.-X. Mi, Coexistence of magnetic order and persistent spin dynamics in a quantum kagome antiferromagnet with no intersite mixing, Phys. Rev. B 99, 214441 (2019).
  3. D. Chatterjee, P. Puphal, Q. Barthélemy, J. Willwater, S. Süllow, C. Baines, S. Petit, E. Ressouche, J. Ollivier, K. M. Zoch, C. Krellner, M. Parzer, A. Riss, F. Garmroudi, A. Pustogow, P. Mendels, E. Kermarrec, and F. Bert, From spin liquid to magnetic ordering in the anisotropic kagome Y-kapellasite Y3Cu9(OH)19Cl8: A single-crystal study, Phys. Rev. B 107, 125156 (2023).
  4. T.-H. Han, M. R. Norman, J.-J. Wen, J. A. Rodriguez-Rivera, J. S. Helton, C. Broholm, and Y. S. Lee, Correlated impurities and intrinsic spin-liquid physics in the kagome material herbertsmithite, Phys. Rev. B 94, 060409(R) (2016).
  5. M. Ashtar, J. Guo, Z. Wan, Y. Wang, G. Gong, Y. Liu, Y. Su, and Z. Tian, A new family of disorder-free rare-earth-based kagome lattice magnets: Structure and magnetic characterizations of RE3BWO9 (RE = Pr, Nd, Gd-Ho) boratotungstates, Inorg. Chem. 59, 5368 (2020).
  6. R. Schaffer, Y. Huh, K. Hwang, and Y. B. Kim, Quantum spin liquid in a breathing kagome lattice, Phys. Rev. B 95, 054410 (2017).
  7. D. Flavián, J. Nagl, S. Hayashida, M. Yan, O. Zaharko, T. Fennell, D. Khalyavin, Z. Yan, S. Gvasaliya, and A. Zheludev, Magnetic phase diagram of the breathing-kagome antiferromagnet Nd3BWO9, Phys. Rev. B 107, 174406 (2023).
  8. F. Song, H. Ge, A. Liu, Y. Qin, Y. Han, L. Ling, S. Yuan, Z. Ouyang, J. Sheng, L. Wu, and Z. Tian, Magnetic field tuned anisotropic quantum phase transition in the distorted kagome antiferromagnet Nd3BWO9, Phys. Rev. B 108, 214410 (2023).
  9. A. Yadav, A. Elghandour, T. Arh, D. T. Adroja, M. D. Le, G. B. G. Stenning, M. Aouane, S. Luther, F. Hotz, T. J. Hicken, H. Luetkens, A. Zorko, R. Klingeler, and P. Khuntia, Magnetism in the Jeff=12 kagome antiferromagnet Nd3 BWO9: Thermodynamics, nuclear magnetic resonance, muon spin resonance, and inelastic neutron scattering studies, Phys. Rev. B 111, 094408 (2025).
  10. J. Nagl, D. Flavián, S. Hayashida, K. Yu. Povarov, M. Yan, N. Murai, S. Ohira-Kawamura, G. Simutis, T. J. Hicken, H. Luetkens, C. Baines, A. Hauspurg, B. V. Schwarze, F. Husstedt, V. Pomjakushin, T. Fennell, Z. Yan, S. Gvasaliya, and A. Zheludev, Excitation spectrum and spin Hamiltonian of the frustrated quantum Ising magnet Pr3BWO9, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 023267 (2024).
  11. K. Y. Zeng, F. Y. Song, Z. M. Tian, Q. Chen, S. Wang, B. Liu, S. Li, L. S. Ling, W. Tong, L. Ma, and L. Pi, Local evidence for collective spin excitations in the distorted kagome antiferromagnet Pr3BWO9, Phys. Rev. B 104, 155150 (2021).
  12. K.-Y. Zeng, F.-Y. Song, L.-S. Ling, W. Tong, S.-L. Li, Z.-M. Tian, L. Ma, and L. Pi, Incommensurate magnetic order in Sm3BWO9 with distorted kagome lattice, Chin. Phys. Lett. 39, 107501 (2022).
  13. M. T. Hutchings, Point-charge calculations of energy levels of magnetic ions in crystalline electric fields, in Solid State Physics, Vol. 16 (Academic Press, New York, 1964), pp. 227–273.
  14. Z. Dun, X. Bai, M. B. Stone, H. Zhou, and M. Mourigal, Effective point-charge analysis of crystal fields: Application to rare-earth pyrochlores and tripod kagome magnets R3Mg2Sb3O14, Phys. Rev. Res. 3, 023012 (2021).
  15. See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/PhysRevB.111.L180406 for further details on the CEF model, diffraction data analysis, low-energy neutron spectroscopy, torque and dilatometry measurements, and the various numerical calculations, which includes Refs. [29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37].
  16. J. Nagl, D. Flavián, E. Ressouche, and A. Zheludev, Evolution of the magnetic structure of the kagome-lattice antiferromagnet Nd3BWO9 in a magnetic field, Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), doi: 10.5291/ILL-DATA.CRG-3011 (2023).
  17. Y. H. Matsuda, N. Abe, S. Takeyama, H. Kageyama, P. Corboz, A. Honecker, S. R. Manmana, G. R. Foltin, K. P. Schmidt, and F. Mila, Magnetization of SrCu2(BO3)2 in ultrahigh magnetic fields up to 118 T, Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 137204 (2013).
  18. N. Qureshi, F. Bourdarot, E. Ressouche, W. Knafo, F. Iga, S. Michimura, L.-P. Regnault, and F. Duc, Possible stripe phases in the multiple magnetization plateaus in TbB4 from single-crystal neutron diffraction under pulsed high magnetic fields, Phys. Rev. B 106, 094427 (2022).
  19. S. Nishimoto, N. Shibata, and C. Hotta, Controlling frustrated liquids and solids with an applied field in a kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet, Nat. Commun. 4, 2287 (2013).
  20. F. A. Gómez Albarracín, D. C. Cabra, H. D. Rosales, and G. L. Rossini, Spin-phonon induced magnetic order in the kagome ice, Phys. Rev. B 88, 184421 (2013).
  21. R. Okuma, D. Nakamura, T. Okubo, A. Miyake, A. Matsuo, K. Kindo, M. Tokunaga, N. Kawashima, S. Takeyama, and Z. Hiroi, A series of magnon crystals appearing under ultrahigh magnetic fields in a kagomé antiferromagnet, Nat. Commun. 10, 1229 (2019).
  22. J. Ollivier and H. Mutka, IN5 cold neutron time-of-flight spectrometer, prepared to tackle single crystal spectroscopy, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 80, SB003 (2011).
  23. J. Nagl, D. Flavián, J. Ollivier, and A. Zheludev, Excitation spectrum of the kagome-lattice antiferromagnet Nd3BWO9, Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), doi: 10.5291/ILL-DATA.4-05-861 (2023).
  24. S. Kimura, M. Matsuda, T. Masuda, S. Hondo, K. Kaneko, N. Metoki, M. Hagiwara, T. Takeuchi, K. Okunishi, Z. He, K. Kindo, T. Taniyama, and M. Itoh, Longitudinal spin density wave order in a quasi-1D ising-like quantum antiferromagnet, Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 207201 (2008).
  25. L. Facheris, K. Y. Povarov, S. D. Nabi, D. G. Mazzone, J. Lass, B. Roessli, E. Ressouche, Z. Yan, S. Gvasaliya, and A. Zheludev, Spin density wave versus fractional magnetization plateau in a triangular antiferromagnet, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 087201 (2022).
  26. L. S. Wu, S. E. Nikitin, Z. Wang, W. Zhu, C. D. Batista, A. M. Tsvelik, A. M. Samarakoon, D. A. Tennant, M. Brando, L. Vasylechko, M. Frontzek, A. T. Savici, G. Sala, G. Ehlers, A. D. Christianson, M. D. Lumsden, and A. Podlesnyak, Tomonaga–Luttinger liquid behavior and spinon confinement in YbAlO3, Nat. Commun. 10, 698 (2019).
  27. W. Selke, The ANNNI model — Theoretical analysis and experimental application, Phys. Rep. 170, 213 (1988).
  28. P. Bak and J. von Boehm, Ising model with solitons, phasons, and “the devil's staircase”, Phys. Rev. B 21, 5297 (1980).
  29. A. Scheie, PyCrystalField: Software for calculation, analysis and fitting of crystal electric field Hamiltonians, J. Appl. Crystallogr. 54, 356 (2021).
  30. G. Shirane, S. M. Shapiro, and J. M. Tranquada, Neutron Scattering with a Triple-Axis Spectrometer: Basic Techniques (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002).
  31. N. Iwahara and L. F. Chibotaru, Exchange interaction between J multiplets, Phys. Rev. B 91, 174438 (2015).
  32. J. G. Rau and M. J. P. Gingras, Magnitude of quantum effects in classical spin ices, Phys. Rev. B 92, 144417 (2015).
  33. N. Chandra, K. R. Acharya, and P. C. E. Moody, Analysis and characterization of data from twinned crystals, Acta Crystallogr., Sect. D: Biol. Crystallogr. 55, 1750 (1999).
  34. J. Rodríguez-Carvajal, Recent advances in magnetic structure determination by neutron powder diffraction, Phys. B: Condens. Matter 192, 55 (1993).
  35. D. Blosser, L. Facheris, and A. Zheludev, Miniature capacitive faraday force magnetometer for magnetization measurements at low temperatures and high magnetic fields, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 91, 073905 (2020).
  36. R. Küchler, R. Wawrzyńczak, H. Dawczak-Dębicki, J. Gooth, and S. Galeski, New applications for the world's smallest high-precision capacitance dilatometer and its stress-implementing counterpart, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 94, 045108 (2023).
  37. H. A. Kramers and G. H. Wannier, Statistics of the two-dimensional ferromagnet. Part I, Phys. Rev. 60, 252 (1941).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. B 111, L180406– Published 16 May, 2025
  • Received 12 September 2024
  • Revised 17 March 2025
  • Accepted 6 May 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation