ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Crystal field excitations in rare-earth triangular-lattice phosphates Rb3Ln(PO4)2 (Ln = Nd, Tm, and Yb)

Abstract: The recently discovered triangular-lattice phosphates Rb?Ln(PO?)? with Ln being an rare-earth element shows very strong frustration effects associated with a perfect triangular lattice of the Ln3+ ions, but only receives very limited investigations so far. Magnetization measurements indicate the absence of long-range magnetic ordering or spin freezing in this family above 2 K, and Rb?Yb(PO?)? does not order even down to 50 mK, thus providing a suitable platform for examining the possible quantum spin liquid physics and studying the effect of geometrical frustrations. We propose to measure the CEF excitations in Rb?Nd(PO?)? (monoclinic structure with Kramers ions), Rb?Tm(PO?)? (trigonal structure with non-Kramers ions) and Rb?Yb(PO?)? (trigonal structure with Kramers ions), by performing INS experiments at MARI on single-crystal samples of these compounds with distinct magnetic properties. As the collective magnetism in these rare-earth triangular-lattice antiferromagnets strongly depends on their magnetic anisotropy, which is largely correlated with their CEF Hamiltonian and single-ion magnetism of Ln3+ ions, an inelastic neutron scattering (INS) study on their CEF excitations will be crucial for decoding their CEF Hamiltonian on the single-ion level and further understanding the collective magnetism of the rare-earth ions in these compounds.

Principal Investigator: Professor Wentao Jin
Local Contact: Dr Duc Le
Experimenter: Mr Yonglin Wang
Local Contact: Dr Gøran Nilsen
Experimenter: Mr Tengfei Peng

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2510454

ISIS Experiment Number: RB2510454

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

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

For Example:
Professor Wentao Jin et al; (2025): Crystal field excitations in rare-earth triangular-lattice phosphates Rb3Ln(PO4)2 (Ln = Nd, Tm, and Yb), STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB2510454

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