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.
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Acknowledgements
We thank A. Clearfield for providing the large hydrothermal vessels used in the crystal growth. We thank Y.-B. Kim, T. Senthil and T. Yildirim for useful discussions. This work was supported in part by the MRSEC Program of the National Science Foundation under award number DMR 02-13282 and also by NSF award DMR-0239377.
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Grohol, D., Matan, K., Cho, JH. et al. Spin chirality on a two-dimensional frustrated lattice. Nature Mater 4, 323–328 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1353
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1353
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