Frustration relief and reorientation transition in the kagome-like dolerophanite Cu$_2$OSO$_4$

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive theoretical analysis of the magnetic properties and anisotropy-driven phase transitions in the kagome-like insulator Cu$_2$OSO$_4$, revealing mechanisms for canted ferrimagnetic order and spin reorientation.

Contribution

It introduces a minimal microscopic model based on ab initio and classical calculations that explains experimental magnetic order, anisotropy, and reorientation transitions in Cu$_2$OSO$_4$.

Findings

Identification of the competition between Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya and symmetric exchange anisotropy.

Discovery of a two-step continuous phase transition involving spin reorientation.

Prediction of how anisotropy influences the spin-wave spectrum and experimental signatures.

Abstract

We present a theoretical study of dolerophanite Cu$_2$OSO$_4$, a layered kagome-like spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ magnetic insulator that can be described either as a system of chains coupled through dimers or as a kagome lattice where every third spin is replaced by a ferromagnetic spin dimer. Building on insights from ab initio calculations, classical numerical minimizations, and semiclassical expansions, we arrive at a minimal microscopic description that accounts for the experimental data reported so far, including the nature of the magnetic order, the reported spin length, and the observed anisotropy. The latter arises by a peculiar competition between the antisymmetric (Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya) and the symmetric part of the exchange anisotropy, which gives rise to a two-step re-orientation process involving two successive continuous phase transitions. Our work uncovers mechanisms stabilizing canted ferrimagnetic order in kagome systems, and highlights strong magnetic anisotropy in the presence if dissimilar magnetic orbitals on crystallographically nonequivalent Cu sites. We also show how these anisotropy terms affect the spin-wave spectrum and how they can be tracked experimentally.