Search NASA⌕ Search
Home/Archive/DOE OSTI

DOE OSTI · 2940293

Interleaved bond frustration in a triangular lattice antiferromagnet

Gomez Alvarado, S. J. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000257831126)·Chamorro, J. R. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)]·Rout, D. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000347577221)·Hielscher, J. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Technical University of Munich (Germany)]·Schwarz, Sarah [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)]·Benyacko, Caeli [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)]·Stone, M. B. [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000178849715)·Garlea, V. Ovidiu [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000253227271)·Jackson, A. R. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)]·Pokharel, G. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000213833437)·Gomez, R. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)]·Ortiz, B. R. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000213337003)·Sarker, Suchismita [Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (United States)] (ORCID:0000000288201143)·Kautzsch, L. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)]·Gallington, L. C. [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)] (ORCID:0000000203837522)·Seshadri, R. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000158584027)·Wilson, Stephen D. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)] (ORCID:000000033733930X)
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Frustration of long-range order via lattice geometry amplifies fluctuations and generates ground states that are highly sensitive to perturbations. Traditionally, geometric frustration is used to engineer unconventional magnetic states; however, the charge degree of freedom and bond order can be similarly frustrated. Finding materials that host both frustrated magnetic and bond networks holds promise for engineering structural and magnetic states with the potential of coupling to one another via either magnetic or strain fields. Here we identify an unusual instance of this coexistence in the triangular lattice antiferromagnets LnCd 3 P 3 (Ln = lanthanides). These compounds feature two-dimensional planes of unique trigonal planar CdP 3 units with an underlying bond instability that is frustrated via emergent kagome ice correlations. This bond instability is interleaved in between layers of frustrated magnetic moments. Furthermore, our results establish LnCd 3 P 3 as a rare materials class in which frustrated magnetism is embedded within a dopable semiconductor with a frustrated bond order instability.

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Gomez Alvarado, S. J. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000257831126), Chamorro, J. R. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)], Rout, D. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000347577221), Hielscher, J. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Technical University of Munich (Germany)], Schwarz, Sarah [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)], Benyacko, Caeli [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)], Stone, M. B. [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000178849715), Garlea, V. Ovidiu [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000253227271), Jackson, A. R. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)], Pokharel, G. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000213833437), Gomez, R. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)], Ortiz, B. R. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000213337003), Sarker, Suchismita [Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (United States)] (ORCID:0000000288201143), Kautzsch, L. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)], Gallington, L. C. [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)] (ORCID:0000000203837522), Seshadri, R. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000158584027), Wilson, Stephen D. [University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)] (ORCID:000000033733930X). 2025-10-22. Interleaved bond frustration in a triangular lattice antiferromagnet. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02380-x

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related discoveries

DOE OSTI2025

Strong Kitaev Interaction in BaCo 2⁢ (AsO 4 ) 2

The inelastic neutron scattering results and their analysis unequivocally point to a dominant Kitaev interaction in the honeycomb-lattice cobaltate BaCo 2 ⁢(AsO 4 ) 2 . Our anisotropic-exchange model closely describes all available neutron scattering data in the material’s field-polarized phase. Furthermore, the density-matrix renormalization group results for our model are in close accord with the unusual double-zigzag magnetic order and the low in-plane saturation field of BaCo 2 ⁢(AsO 4 ) 2 .

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2025

Rethinking 𝛼−RuCl 3 : Parameters, models, and phase diagram

RuCl 3 was likely the first ever deliberately synthesized ruthenium compound, following the discovery of the 44 Ru element in 1844. For a long time it was known as an oxidation catalyst, with its physical properties being discrepant and confusing, until a decade ago when its allotropic form 𝛼−RuCl 3 rose to exceptional prominence. This “rediscovery” of 𝛼−RuCl 3 has not only reshaped the hunt for a material manifestation of the Kitaev spin liquid, but it has opened the floodgates of theoretical and experimental research in the many unusual phases and excitations that the anisotropic-exchange magnets as a class of compounds have to offer. Given its importance for the field of Kitaev materials, it is astonishing that the low-energy spin model that describes this compound and its possible proximity to the much-desired spin-liquid state is still a subject of significant debate ten years later. In the present study, we argue that the existing key phenomenological observations put strong natural constraints on the effective microscopic spin model of 𝛼−RuCl 3 , and specifically on its spin-orbit-induced anisotropic-exchange parameters that are responsible for the nontrivial physical properties of this material. These constraints allow one to focus on the relevant region of the multidimensional phase diagram of the 𝛼−RuCl 3 model, suggest an intuitive description of it via a different parametrization of the exchange matrix, offer a unifying view on the earlier assessments of its parameters, and bring closer together several approaches to the derivation of anisotropic-exchange models. We explore extended phase diagrams relevant to the 𝛼−RuCl 3 parameter space using quasiclassical, Luttinger-Tisza, exact diagonalization, and density-matrix renormalization-group methods, demonstrating a remarkably close quantitative accord between them on the general structure and hierarchy of the phases, with the zigzag, ferromagnetic, and incommensurate phases that are proximate to each other. As a result, one of the highlights is the detailed agreement on the nature of the incommensurate phases that realize two distinct counterrotating helical states.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗