Single-crystal study of the honeycomb XXZ magnet BaCo2(PO4)2 in magnetic fields
Abstract
We present a study of high-quality BaCo2(PO4)2 single crystals via magnetization, heat-capacity, thermal-expansion and magnetostriction measurements. Sharp anomalies in the thermodynamic properties at TN=3.4\,K reveal a long-range antiferromagnetic order in these single-crystalline samples, which is absent in polycrystalline BaCo2(PO4)2. The temperature dependent magnetic susceptibilities for in-plane and out-of-plane magnetic fields are strongly anisotropic and reveal a pronounced easy-plane anisotropy. A Curie-Weiss analysis implies strong orbital magnetism, as it is known from the sister compound BaCo2(AsO4)2 that is discussed as a potential Kitaev spin-liquid material. When applying in-plane magnetic fields at low temperature, BaCo2(PO4)2 is driven to another ordered phase at a critical field HC1≈ 0.11\,T and then undergoes a further field-induced transition to a highly polarized paramagnetic phase at HC2≈ 0.3\,T, which is again similar to the case of BaCo2(AsO4)2. In addition, our lowest-temperature data reveal that the field-induced transitions in BaCo2(PO4)2 become dominated by thermally assisted domain-wall motion.
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