SmI3: 4f5 honeycomb magnet with spin-orbital entangled Γ7 Kramers doublet

Abstract

We report magnetic properties of a 4f-honeycomb iodide SmI3 made up of edge-shared network of SmI6 octahedra. High temperature magnetic susceptibility indicates Γ7 Kramers doublet ground state of Sm3+ (4f5) ions stabilized by the spin-orbit coupling and octahedral crystal electric field, which interact with Sm-I-Sm bond angle nearly 90 degree. Magnetization measurements down to 0.1 K detected antiferromagnetic correlations and an anomaly in the magnetization curve before saturation without a sign of long-range order. Relevance between SmI3 and the antiferromagnetic Kitaev material proposed in the 4f-electron system is discussed.

16 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Mott Insulators in the Strong Spin-Orbit Coupling Limit: From Heisenberg to a Quantum Compass and Kitaev Models
• Successive magnetic phase transitions in $\mathbf{\alpha }$-RuCl${}_3$: XY-like frustrated magnet on the honeycomb lattice
• Thermodynamic Evidence of Proximity to a Kitaev Spin-Liquid in Ag${}_3$LiIr${}_2$O${}_6$
• Collective excitations in the tetravalent lanthanide honeycomb antiferromagnet, Na2PrO3

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• Exploring rare-earth Kitaev magnets by massive-scale computational analysis
• Exchange Interactions in Rare-earth Magnets $A_2$PrO${}_3$ ($A$= alkali metals): Revisited
• Ligand-SOC enhanced $4f^5$ Kitaev antiferromagnet: Application to ${\mathrm{SmI}}_3$