This year ended on an exciting note for the group as Aly published his first ever paper in Physical Review B explaining the one dimensional behaviour exhibited by the triangular lattice S=1 system, BaMo(PO4)2.
In it, a comprehensive study, involving elastic and inelastic neutron scattering, thermodynamic property measurements, and ab initio calculations – performed in collaboration with the group of Dr. Alexander Tsirlin at the University of Augsburg and Dr. Yaroslav Kvashnin at the University of Uppsala – reveals that the system lies within a region of the S=1 chain phase diagram that is rarely accessed. This behaviour is explained through inelastic neutron scattering data, which show a large gap in the calculated S(Q, ω) consistent with considerable easy-axis anisotropy. The nature of this anisotropy can be identified as dominantly single-ion from spin wave fits, a result which is echoed by first principle electronic structural calculations. The extracted parameters place BaMo(PO4)2 in a region of the phase diagram where even though magnetic ordering is stabilized by this easy-axis anisotropy, unusual excitation continua are expected. These will be further probed in future experiments on single crystal samples.
Clark Group 