Executive Summary : | Frustrated magnets are materials with localized spins that interact via competing exchange interactions, leading to large degeneracy in the ground state. These systems can stabilize in various exotic ground states, such as spin-ice, quantum spin liquid (QSL), non-collinear magnetic order, BEC state, and magnetization plateau. These phase transitions towards elevated temperatures have technological advantages, including potential applications in quantum computation and spintronic devices. Experimental realization of exotic phases of matter, mainly QSL, is important for quantum computation and spintronic devices. Frustrated magnets with infinitely degenerate ground states exhibit large magneto-caloric-effect (MCE), which lifts degeneracy in the ground state with an increase in magnetic field. The main objective of this project is to discover novel materials with potentially frustrated kagome geometry and to understand the nature of low temperature quantum phase transitions, various types of order and disorder phenomena. The ground state of a simple Heisenberg kagome antiferromagnet with quantum spins is a long-standing problem, but the discovery of herbertsmithite ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2 in 2005 triggered significant research. Several phase diagrams have been reported for kagome lattice antiferromagnets, predicting a large variety of novel ground states based on exchange coupling ratio and applied magnetic field. However, experimental realization of such lattices is lacking due to the unavailability of appropriate model compounds. The project proposes synthesizing new frustrated kagome lattice compounds in polycrystalline and single crystalline forms and unraveling their microscopic properties under extreme conditions, such as low temperatures and high magnetic fields. |