Abstract

The collective behaviour of interacting magnetic moments can be strongly influenced by the topology of the underlying lattice. In geometrically frustrated spin systems, interesting chiral correlations may develop that are related to the spin arrangement on triangular plaquettes. We report a study of the spin chirality on a two-dimensional geometrically frustrated lattice. Our new chemical synthesis methods allow us to produce large single-crystal samples of KFe₃(OH)₆(SO₄)₂, an ideal Kagomé lattice antiferromagnet. Combined thermodynamic and neutron scattering measurements reveal that the phase transition to the ordered ground-state is unusual. At low temperatures, application of a magnetic field induces a transition between states with different non-trivial spin-textures.

1. Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
2. Department of Physics and Center for Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
3. NIST Center for Neutron Research, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA

Correspondence to: Young S. Lee² e-mail: younglee@mit.edu

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