High-field magnetic ground state in S = 1/2 kagome lattice antiferromagnet ZnCu[subscript 3](OH)[subscript 6]Cl[subscript 2<]

Herbertsmithite ZnCu[subscript 3](OH)[subscript 6]Cl[subscript 2] is a kagome lattice antiferromagnet with spin-1/2 and has been demonstrated to be a likely candidate of spin liquid by a number of recent experiments. The high-field magnetization of the kagome lattice is complicated due to the presen...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Asaba, Tomoya, Han, Tianheng, Lawson, B. J., Yu, F., Tinsman, C., Xiang, Z., Li, G., Lee, Young S., Li, Lu
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2014
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/88970
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7022-8313
Description
Summary:Herbertsmithite ZnCu[subscript 3](OH)[subscript 6]Cl[subscript 2] is a kagome lattice antiferromagnet with spin-1/2 and has been demonstrated to be a likely candidate of spin liquid by a number of recent experiments. The high-field magnetization of the kagome lattice is complicated due to the presence of a few percent of extra Cu impurities sitting on the interlayer metallic sites. To determine the magnetic ground state of the kagome lattice, we measured the magnetization of a single crystalline ZnCu[subscript 3](OH)[subscript 6]Cl[subscript 2] using torque magnetometry down to the base temperatures 20 mK in intense magnetic field as high as 31 T. The high-field intrinsic magnetization from the kagome lattice turns out to be linear with magnetic field, and the magnetic susceptibility is independent of temperature at 20 mK ≤ T ≤ 5 K. Moreover, below 2 K, several field-induced anomalies are observed in between 7 T and 15 T.