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Synthesis of a d1-titanium fluoride kagome lattice antiferromagnet

Nature Chemistry volume 12, pages 691–696 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The kagome lattice, composed of a planar array of corner-sharing triangles, is one of the most geometrically frustrated lattices. The realization of a spin S = 1/2 kagome lattice antiferromagnet is of particular interest because it may host an exotic form of matter, a quantum spin liquid state, which shows long-range entanglement and no magnetic ordering down to 0 K. A few S = 1/2 kagome lattice antiferromagnets exist, typically based on Cu2+, d9 compounds, though they feature structural imperfections. Herein, we present the synthesis of (CH3NH3)2NaTi3F12, which comprises an S = 1/2 kagome layer that exhibits only one crystallographically distinct Ti3+, d1 site, and one type of bridging fluoride. A static positional disorder is proposed for the interlayer CH3NH3+. No structural phase transitions were observed from 1.8 K to 523 K. Despite its spin-freezing behaviour, other features—including its negative Curie–Weiss temperature and a lack of long-range ordering—imply that this compound is a highly frustrated magnet with unusual magnetic phase behaviours.

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Fig. 1: Crystal structure of 1-Ti.
Fig. 2: Low-temperature structural and thermodynamic properties of 1-Ti.
Fig. 3: View of the different titanium sites induced by the static positional disorder of MA+ viewed parallel to the c-axis.
Fig. 4: Physical properties of 1-Ti.

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Data availability

Crystallographic data for the structures reported in this Article have been deposited at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, under deposition numbers CCDC 1950701 (1-Ti, 100 K) and 1950702 (1-Ti, 298 K). Copies of the data can be obtained free of charge via https://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/. All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article and its Supplementary Information files.

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Acknowledgements

Studies were supported by the Beckman Foundation as part of a Beckman Young Investigator Award to H.S.L. Single-crystal diffraction experiments were performed at the Georgia Institute of Technology SCXRD facility, established with funding from the Georgia Institute of Technology. We thank M. Mourigal for providing access to a PPMS. This work was performed in part at the Georgia Tech Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology, a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), which is supported by the National Science Foundation (grant ECCS-1542174). The low-temperature PXRD experiment was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility. A portion of this research used resources at the Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We thank Q. Zhang and J. K. Keum for their help with neutron powder diffraction and low-temperature PXRD studies, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Ningxin Jiang, Arun Ramanathan, John Bacsa & Henry S. La Pierre

  2. Nuclear and Radiological Engineering Program, School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Henry S. La Pierre

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  1. Ningxin Jiang
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  2. Arun Ramanathan
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Contributions

N.J. and H.S.L. conceived and designed the experiments. N.J. performed all the experiments except for the thermogravimetric analysis, DSC and NMR, which were performed by A.R. The neutron diffraction experiments were analysed by A.R. The crystallography was performed by N.J. and J.B.; N.J. and H.S.L. wrote the initial draft of the paper, and all authors contributed to the final version.

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Correspondence to Henry S. La Pierre.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–29, experimental methods and Tables 1–3.

Supplementary Data 1

Crystallographic information file of compound 1-Ti at 298 K.

Supplementary Data 2

Crystallographic information file of compound 1-Ti at 100 K.

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Jiang, N., Ramanathan, A., Bacsa, J. et al. Synthesis of a d1-titanium fluoride kagome lattice antiferromagnet. Nat. Chem. 12, 691–696 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-020-0490-8

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