We present two experiments that provide information on spin anisotropy and the magnetic structure of NaxCoO2. First, we report low-energy neutron inelastic scattering measurements of the zone-center magnetic excitations in the magnetically ordered phase of Na0.75CoO2. The energy spectra suggest the existence of two gaps, and are very well fitted by a spin-wave model with both in-plane and out-of-plane anisotropy terms. The gap energies decrease with increasing temperature and both gaps are found to have closed when the temperature exceeds the magnetic ordering temperature T_m~22 K. Secondly, we present neutron diffraction studies of Na0.85CoO2 with a magnetic field applied approximately parallel to the c axis. For fields in excess of ~8T a magnetic Bragg peak was observed at the (0,0,3) position in reciprocal space. We interpret this as a spin-flop transition of the A-type antiferromagnetic structure, and we show that the spin-flop field is consistent with the size of the anisotropy gap.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0510360,
title = {Spin gaps and magnetic structure of NaxCoO2},
author = {L. M. Helme and A. T. Boothroyd and R. Coldea and D. Prabhakaran and A. Stunault and G. J. McIntyre and N. Kernavanois},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0510360},
year = {2007}
}