Cascade of field-induced magnetic transitions in a frustrated antiferromagnetic metal

Abstract

Frustrated magnets can exhibit many novel forms of order when exposed to high magnetic fields, however, much less is known about materials where frustration occurs in the presence of itinerant electrons. Here we report thermodynamic and transport measurements on micron-sized single crystals of the triangular-lattice metallic antiferromagnet 2H-AgNiO2, in magnetic fields of up to 90 T and temperatures down to 0.35 K. We observe a cascade of magnetic phase transitions at 13.5 20, 28 and 39T in fields applied along the easy axis, and we combine magnetic torque, specific heat and transport data to construct the field-temperature phase diagram. The results are discussed in the context of a frustrated easy-axis Heisenberg model for the localized moments where intermediate applied magnetic fields are predicted to stabilize a magnetic supersolid phase. Deviations in the measured phase diagram from this model predictions are attributed to the role played by the itinerant electrons.

possible experimental signature of a magnetic supersolid phase

References in corpus (5)

• Orbital degeneracy removed by charge order in triangular antiferromagnet AgNiO2
• Charge disproportionation and collinear magnetic order in the frustrated triangular antiferromagnet AgNiO2
• Competition between supersolid phases and magnetisation plateaux in the frustrated easy-axis antiferromagnet on a triangular lattice
• Spin dynamics of frustrated easy-axis triangular antiferromagnet 2H-AgNiO2 explored by inelastic neutron scattering
• Supersolid phases in a realistic three-dimensional spin model

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