Abstract
The geometrically frustrated spin-chain compound was recently found to exhibit properties suggesting the phenomenon of quantum tunneling of the magnetization (QTM). The present paper addresses this issue by investigating the temperature and magnetic-field dependence of the characteristic spin-relaxation time . This study is based on the analysis of the out-of-phase ac magnetic susceptibility of single crystals. The overall behavior is found to support the occurrence of QTM in : (i) saturation of at low ; (ii) observation of identical values in the magnetic fields corresponding to the steps in the vs curve at low ; (iii) existence of a dip centered at zero field in the vs curve at low . These QTM-like features found in are compared to those previously reported in other materials such as single-molecular magnets.
1 More- Received 20 July 2004
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.70.214439
©2004 American Physical Society