Abstract
High-precision ultrasonic measurements are used to study magnetoelastic coupling as a function of the in-plane magnetic field orientation in the spin- triangular lattice antiferromagnet . The relevance of this coupling in stabilizing the 1/3 magnetization plateau is explored. The analysis indicates that, while the magnetoelastic coupling in is large in comparison to other triangular lattice antiferromagnets, the strength of this coupling is still too small to fully account for the magnetization plateau width in . Spin fluctuations are therefore the dominant mechanism inducing and stabilizing the magnetization plateau. Our results also show that the amplitude of the spin fluctuations suddenly drop as the V phase is induced at higher field.
- Received 21 September 2018
- Revised 7 January 2019
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.99.094408
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