The natural mineral szenicsite: a frustrated antiferromagnetic chain with competing NN and next NNN interactions
A simple frustrated magnetic model system is the spin-1/2 linear chain with competing nearest neighbour (NN) and next-nearest neighbour (NNN) interactions. Despite having been extensively studied in theory, no real material with antiferromagnetic NN- and NNN interactions and a non-zero excitation gap have ever been observed. Here we propose to study the natural mineral szenicsite (Cu3(MoO4)(OH)4) that has recently been proposed as a model candidate material. In the proposed interaction scheme, the magnetic Cu2+ ions form triple chains along the c-axis. The two outer chains are predicted to be decoupled from the central chain due to frustrated interchain couplings, they can be described as weakly 1D coupled antiferromagnetic dimers. The central chain is predicted to be a quasi-isolated uniform Heisenberg chain with antiferromagnetic NN and NNN interactions in a ratio close to the exactly solvable Majumdar-Ghosh model. We here propose to study the nature of the magnetic excitations emerging from the two types of 1D chains in szenicsite by means of inelastic neutron scattering.
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HANSEN Ursula Bengaard; ENDERLE Mechthild; FAK Bjorn and R. K. Kremer. (2021). The natural mineral szenicsite: a frustrated antiferromagnetic chain with competing NN and next NNN interactions. Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) doi:10.5291/ILL-DATA.4-05-828
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