We present the synthesis and a detailed investigation of structural and magnetic properties of polycrystalline NaVOAsO4 by means of x-ray diffraction, magnetization, electron spin resonance (ESR), and 75As nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements as well as density-functional band structure calculations. Temperature-dependent magnetic susceptibility, ESR intensity, and NMR line shift could be described well using an alternating spin-1/2 chain model with the exchange coupling J/kB≃52 K and an alternation parameter α≃0.65. From the high-field magnetic isotherm measured at T=1.5 K, the critical field of the gap closing is found to be Hc≃16 T, which corresponds to the zero-field spin gap of Δ0/kB≃21.4 K. Both NMR shift and spin-lattice relaxation rate show an activated behavior at low temperatures, further confirming the singlet ground state. The spin chains do not coincide with the structural chains, whereas the couplings between the spin chains are frustrated. Because of a relatively small spin gap, NaVOAsO4 is a promising compound for further experimental studies under high magnetic fields.
@article{arxiv.1810.06232,
title = {Singlet ground state in the alternating spin-$1/2$ chain compound NaVOAsO$_4$},
author = {U. Arjun and K. M. Ranjith and B. Koo and J. Sichelschmidt and Y. Skourski and M. Baenitz and A. A. Tsirlin and R. Nath},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.06232},
year = {2019}
}