Disorder effects in the quantum kagome antiferromagnet ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2

Abstract

The recent NMR experiments on ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2 motivate our study of the effect of non- magnetic defects on the antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 kagome lattice. We use exact diagonalization methods to study the effect of two such defects on finite size systems. Our results, obtained without adjustable parameters, are in good quantitative agreement with recent Oxygen 17 NMR data. They provide support for the experimental interpretation of the presence of defects within the kagome layers due to Zn/Cu substitutions. Our results also show that disorder effects become relevant at lower temperatures, raising questions about the experimental evidence for the absence of an intrinsic spin gap in the kagome 2D layers.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Spin Dynamics of the Spin-1/2 Kagome Lattice Antiferromagnet ZnCu_3(OH)_6Cl_2
• Quantum magnetism in the paratacamite family: towards an ideal kagome lattice
• 17O NMR study of the intrinsic magnetic susceptibility and spin dynamics of the quantum kagome antiferromagnet ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2
• ^{63}Cu, ^{35}Cl, and ^{1}H NMR in the S=1/2 Kagomé Lattice ZnCu_{3}(OH)_{6}Cl_{2}
• Magnetic Susceptibility of the Kagome Antiferromagnet ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2
• Impurity effects in the quantum kagome system ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya anisotropy and non-magnetic impurities in the $s=1/2$ kagome system ZnCu_3(OH)_6Cl_2
• Quantum criticality of the kagome antiferromagnet with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions
• Impurity-doped Kagome Antiferromagnet: A Quantum Dimer Model Approach
• Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions in valence bond systems