Extended Honeycomb Metal Chloride with Tunable Antiferromagnetic Correlations

Abstract

In recent years, the exploration of quantum triangular lattice antiferromagnets has become the subject of intensive research. Within this realm, bilayer triangular lattice antiferromagnets with diverse magnetic exchange interactions have garnered significant interest. In this work, we reported two new bilayer triangular antiferromagnets, Cs 3 M I FeMnCl 9 , where M = Na + and Ag + . The structures of these compounds are derived from the known Cs 3 Fe 2 Cl 9 , featuring a buckled honeycomb structure, where half of Fe 3+ are substituted by Mn 2+ and the bilayer triangular lattice layers are connected with monovalent Na + or Ag + ions. Surprisingly, we found that the band gaps are substantially reduced compared to Cs 3 Fe 2 Cl 9 . Density functional theory (DFT) results attribute this trend to a strong involvement of Mn 2+ d-orbitals in the valence band maximum of Cs 3 M I FeMnCl 9 . Moreover, magnetic susceptibility measurements demonstrate a stronger magnetic exchange interaction in Cs 3 M I FeMnCl 9 , which is modulated by bridging Na + or Ag + ions. These findings illustrate an interesting chemical approach for manipulating the electronic and magnetic properties of buckled honeycomb antiferromagnets.