Thermal decomposition of the Kitaev material $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ and its influence on low-temperature behavior
| Autor: | Breitner, Franziska A., Jesche, Anton, Tsurkan, Vladimir, Gegenwart, Philipp |
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| Rok vydání: | 2023 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Phys. Rev. B 108, 045103 (2023) |
| Druh dokumentu: | Working Paper |
| DOI: | 10.1103/PhysRevB.108.045103 |
| Popis: | We explore the effect of heat treatment in argon atmosphere under various temperatures up to $500^\circ$C on single crystals of $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ by study of the mass loss, microprobe energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, powder x-ray diffraction, electrical resistance as well as low-temperature magnetic susceptibility and specific heat. Clear signatures of dechlorination and oxidation of Ru appear for annealing temperatures beyond $300^\circ$C. Analysis of the specific heat below 2~K reveals a RuO$_2$ mass fraction of order $1\%$ for pristine $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$ which increases up to $20\%$ after thermal annealing, fully consistent with mass-loss analysis. The small RuO$_2$ inclusions drastically reduce the global electrical resistance and may thus significantly affect low-temperature thermal transport and Hall effect. Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures |
| Databáze: | arXiv |
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