The half magnetization plateau in Ni3V2O8 studied by electron spin resonance

J Phys Condens Matter. 2019 Mar 27;31(12):125801. doi: 10.1088/1361-648X/aafbae. Epub 2019 Jan 3.

Abstract

Ni3V2O8, regarded as an S = 1 kagome staircase lattice antiferromagnet, possesses a novel magnetic field-temperature phase diagram. Specifically, a half plateau region is observed in the high field magnetization curve for magnetic fields in the range of 11-19 T. This experimental observation is theoretically unexpected for a standard kagome lattice antiferromagnet, and consequently, the underlying magnetic structure is still unclear. Multi-frequency electron spin resonance results in this study strongly support a collinear magnetic arrangement at the half plateau region. The resonant modes can be well fit by only considering the antiferromagnetic interactions on a four-spin sublattice of the spine sites.