We report thermodynamic and neutron diffraction measurements on the magnetic ordering properties of the honeycomb lattice magnet YbCl₃. We find YbCl₃ exhibits a Néel type long-range magnetic order at the wavevector (0, 0, 0) below T_N = 600 mK. This magnetic order is associated with a small sharp peak in heat capacity and most magnetic entropy release occurs above the magnetic ordering temperature. The magnetic moment lies in-plane, parallel to the monoclinic a-axis, whose magnitude m_Yb = 0.86(3) μ_B is considerably smaller than the expected fully ordered moment of 2.24 μ_B for the doublet crystal-field ground state. The magnetic ordering moment gradually increases with increasing magnetic field perpendicular to the ab-plane, reaching a maximum value of 1.6(2) μ_B at 4 T, before it is completely suppressed above ∼ 9 T. These results indicate the presence of strong quantum fluctuations in YbCl₃.

我们报告了蜂窝晶格磁铁YbCl ₃的磁性有序特性的热力学和中子衍射测量。我们发现YbCl ₃在低于T _N = 600 mK的波矢（0，0，0）上表现出Néel型远距离磁阶。该磁序与热容的一个小的尖峰相关，并且大多数磁熵释放发生在磁序温度以上。磁矩位于平面内，平行于单斜一个轴，其大小米_的Yb = 0.86（3）μ_乙大于2.24的预期完全有序的时刻相当小μ_乙对于双重态晶体场基态。的磁有序力矩随磁场垂直于逐渐增加AB -平面，达到1.6（2）的最大值μ_乙于4 T，然后将其完全高于〜9 T.抑制这些结果表明强量子的存在YbCl _3的波动。