ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Magnetic structure of rhombohedral honeycomb antiferromagnets

Abstract: We propose to determine details of the magnetic structure in the layered honeycomb easy-plane magnet CoTiO3, with ferromagnetic honeycomb layers stacked antiferromagnetically. In recent inelastic measurements on MERLIN we observed a spin gap at low energies, suggesting a preferential orientation of the moments. This is unexpected as no local anisotropy is allowed for Kramers ions and the three-fold symmetry of the crystal structure ensures that no anisotropic bilinear spin exchanges can select a unique moment orientation in the ab plane. The ground state selection could be due to quantum zero-point fluctuations, here we plan to search for evidence of a substantial reduction of the ordered moment expected if this mechanism was applicable. We also propose complementary and contrasting measurements on the easy-axis FeTiO3, where an almost full ordered moment is expected along the c-axis.

Principal Investigator: Professor Radu Coldea
Local Contact: Dr Pascal Manuel
Experimenter: Miss Miska Elliot
Experimenter: Dr Paul McClarty
Experimenter: Dr Dharmalingan Prabhakaran
Experimenter: Dr Roger Johnson
Experimenter: Miss Leonie Woodland
Experimenter: Dr Ryutaro Okuma
Experimenter: Mr Daniel Antoniou
Experimenter: Mr Daniel Flavián Blasco

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2010721

ISIS Experiment Number: RB2010721

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
Select the data format above to find out more about it.

Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Professor Radu Coldea et al; (2020): Magnetic structure of rhombohedral honeycomb antiferromagnets , STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2010721

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.