Specific heat and magnetization studies of Dy2Ti2O7

Jan Kycia, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo.

Dy2Ti2O7 is a material with a pyrochlore lattice of corner-sharing tetrahedral.  Crystal-field effects constrain the magnetic moments of the rare-earth ions to  point along the axis connecting the centres of the two neighbouring tetrahedra.

 As a result, the magnetic moments are highly frustrated and possess a ground state containing a large residual entropy similar to water ice. Because of this similarity to water ice, the system is called a spin ice. Recently a very interesting perspective  has been developed in which the thermal excitations in the magnetic spins are viewed as magnetic monopoles.

 In this talk, I will review some of the progress in understanding spin ice and the monopole picture. I will discuss my group’s results of specific heat, ac susceptibility and magnetization measurements.

Site web du groupe du Prof. Kycia

Cette conférence est présentée par le RQMP Versant Nord du Département de physique de l'Université de Montréal et le Département de génie physique de Polytechnique Montréal.