RESUMEN
We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of the mineral atacamite Cu_{2}Cl(OH)_{3}. Density-functional theory yields a Hamiltonian describing anisotropic sawtooth chains with weak 3D connections. Experimentally, we fully characterize the antiferromagnetically ordered state. Magnetic order shows a complex evolution with the magnetic field, while, starting at 31.5 T, we observe a plateaulike magnetization at about M_{sat}/2. Based on complementary theoretical approaches, we show that the latter is unrelated to the known magnetization plateau of a sawtooth chain. Instead, we provide evidence that the magnetization process in atacamite is a field-driven canting of a 3D network of weakly coupled sawtooth chains that form giant moments.
RESUMEN
We present experimental results for the thermal conductivity kappa of the pseudo-two-leg ladder material CaCu2O3. The strong buckling of the ladder rungs renders this material a good approximation to a S=1/2 Heisenberg chain. Despite a strong suppression of the thermal conductivity of this material in all crystal directions due to inherent disorder, we find a dominant magnetic contribution kappa mag along the chain direction. kappa mag is linear in temperature, resembling the low-temperature limit of the thermal Drude weight D th of the S=1/2 Heisenberg chain. The comparison of kappamag and Dth yields a magnetic mean-free path of l mag approximately 22+/-5 A, in good agreement with magnetic measurements.
RESUMEN
We present a combined experimental and theoretical study on copper pyrimidine dinitrate [CuPM(NO3)2(H2O)2]n, a one-dimensional S=1/2 antiferromagnet with alternating local symmetry. From the local susceptibility measured by NMR at the three inequivalent carbon sites in the pyrimidine molecule we deduce a giant spin canting, i.e., an additional staggered magnetization perpendicular to the applied external field at low temperatures. The magnitude of the transverse magnetization, the spin canting of (52+/-4) degrees at 10 K and 9.3 T, and its temperature dependence are in excellent agreement with exact diagonalization calculations.
RESUMEN
He atom surface scattering by dispersionless phonons is treated employing coupled channel (CC) calculations. At low energies, they predict a behavior opposite to perturbative Born or "exponentiated" Born approximation: strong resonant phonon stimulated elastic and inhibited inelastic scattering. The corresponding resonances have not been observed in earlier CC results since these have considered only the temperature dependence of the Debye-Waller factor at higher energy or omitted the attractive well. The resonances can be interpreted in terms of bound states in the attractive well with several excited vibrational quanta. They may be observable for, e.g., He scattering by a cold Xe/Cu surface.
RESUMEN
We present results of the thermal conductivity of La2CuO4 and La(1.8)Eu(0.2)CuO4 single crystals which represent model systems for the two-dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a square lattice. We find large anisotropies of the thermal conductivity which are explained in terms of two-dimensional heat conduction by magnons within the CuO2 planes. Nonmagnetic Zn substituted for Cu gradually suppresses this magnon thermal conductivity kappa(mag). A semiclassical analysis of kappa(mag) is shown to yield a magnon mean free path which scales linearly with the reciprocal concentration of Zn ions.
RESUMEN
Thermodynamic experiments as well as Raman scattering have been used to study the magnetic instabilities in the spin-tetrahedra systems Cu(2)Te(2)O(5)X(2), X = Cl and Br. While the phase transition observed in the Cl system at T(N) = 18.2 K is consistent with 3D antiferromagnetic ordering, the phase transition at T(o) = 11.4 K in the Br system has several unusual features. We propose an explanation in terms of weakly coupled tetrahedra with a singlet-triplet gap and low-lying singlets.