Co-based materials have recently been explored due to potential to realise complex bond-dependent anisotropic magnetism. Prominent examples include Na2Co2TeO6, BaCo2(AsO4)2, Na2BaCo(PO4)2, and CoX2 (X = Cl, Br, I). In order to provide insight into the magnetic interactions in these compounds, we make a comparative analysis of their local crystal electric field excitations spectra via Raman scattering measurements. Combining these measurements with theoretical analysis confirms the validity of jeff=1/2 single-ion ground states for all compounds, and provides accurate experimental estimates of the local crystal distortions, which play a prominent role in the magnetic couplings between spin-orbital coupled Co moments.
@article{arxiv.2403.11980,
title = {Comparative Raman Scattering Study of Crystal Field Excitations in Co-based Quantum Magnets},
author = {Banasree S. Mou and Xinshu Zhang and Li Xiang and Yuanyuan Xu and Ruidan Zhong and Robert J. Cava and Haidong Zhou and Zhigang Jiang and Dmitry Smirnov and Natalia Drichko and Stephen M. Winter},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.11980},
year = {2026}
}