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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 29: Frustrated Magnets: General

TT 29.2: Talk

Wednesday, March 29, 2023, 09:45–10:00, HSZ 201

Thermodynamic study of the partially polarized state of the sawtooth chain atacamite, Cu₂Cl(OH)₃ — Leonie Heinze¹, Tommy Kotte², Albin de Muer³, Sven Luther^2,4, Andrew Ammerlaan⁵, Uli Zeitler⁵, Anja U.B. Wolter⁶, Bernd Büchner⁶, Kirrily C. Rule⁷, Hannes Kühne², and •Stefan Süllow¹ — ¹TU Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany — ²HLD, HZ Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany — ³LNCMI, CNRS, Grenoble, France — ⁴TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany — ⁵HFML, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands — ⁶ANSTO, Lucas Heights, Australia — ⁷IFW Dresden, Dresden, Germany

Recently, the natural mineral atacamite, Cu₂Cl(OH)₃, has been established as a unique model compound of the S = 1/2 quantum sawtooth chain with a dominant magnetic exchange J ∼ 360 K along the chain spine and J′ ∼ 102 K within the sawteeth [1]. Residual interchain couplings of a few Kelvin drive atacamite into an antiferromagnetic (AFM) ground state below T_N = 8.4 K. The AFM phase is suppressed in magnetic fields of ∼ 30 T. Upon suppression of AFM order, the magnetization becomes plateau-like close to M_sat/2.

By now, we have been able to study the magnetic phase diagram up into the unusual partially polarized state by means of specific heat. Here, we present a corresponding study and present evidence for quantum critical behavior occuring upon suppression of AFM order.
[1] L. Heinze et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 207201 (2021).