Non-magnetic ion site disorder effects on the quantum magnetism of a spin-1/2 equilateral triangular lattice antiferromagnet.

With the motivation to study how non-magnetic ion site disorder affects the quantum magnetism of BaCoSbO, a spin-1/2 equilateral triangular lattice antiferromagnet, we performed DC and AC susceptibility, specific heat, elastic and inelastic neutron scattering measurements on single crystalline samples of BaSrCoSbOwith Sr doping on non-magnetic Baion sites. The results show that BaSrCoSbOexhibits (i) a two-step magnetic transition at 2.7 K and 3.3 K, respectively; (ii) a possible canted 120 degree spin structure at zero field with reduced ordered moment as 1.24/Co; (iii) a series of spin state transitions for both∥-plane and∥-axis. For∥-plane, the magnetization plateau feature related to the up-up-down phase is significantly suppressed; (iv) an inelastic neutron scattering spectrum with only one gapped mode at zero field, which splits to one gapless and one gapped mode at 9 T. All these features are distinctly different from those observed for the parent compound BaCoSbO, which demonstrates that the non-magnetic ion site disorder (the Sr doping) plays a complex role on the magnetic properties beyond the conventionally expected randomization of the exchange interactions. We propose the additional effects including the enhancement of quantum spin fluctuations and introduction of a possible spatial anisotropy through the local structural distortions.