Magnetic anisotropy effect on stabilizing magnetization plateaus of kagome strip chain Heisenberg antiferromagnets

Abstract

We investigate the anisotropic effect of magnetization plateaus in the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on a kagome strip chain. The kagome strip chain Heisenberg model, composed of a hexagonal net of triangles forming five-site unit cells, exhibits four magnetization plateaus in the presence of an applied magnetic field. Using numerical density matrix renormalization group method, we find that the magnetization plateaus are stable against anisotropic interactions in the same direction of the applied magnetic field, but the plateaus become much smaller with anisotropic interactions in other directions. We further show the anisotropic effect of the magnon excitations of the 0.6 plateau state using linear spin wave theory. The magnon bandwidth remains small when tuning the anisotropic interactions along the field where the magnetization plateau is stable, while the band becomes more dispersive with anisotropic interactions perpendicular to the field. In addition, upon tuning down the interaction strength for the two lower legs below a critical value, the Hamiltonian of the kagome strip chain is dominated by two separate spin chains. This can be used to determine the effective lattice structure in materials with strong distortions. Our results enhance the theoretical understanding of the anisotropic effect and the nature of magnetization plateaus in kagome strip chain materials, which can contribute to the design and manipulation of kagome materials with tailored properties.