Field-Induced Magnetic Long-Range Order in the Ferromagnetic-Antiferromagnetic Alternating Heisenberg Chain System (CH_{<b> 3</b>})_{<b> 2</b>}CHNH_{<b> 3</b>}CuCl_{<b> 3</b>} Observed by Specific Heat Measurements

Abstract

The compound (CH 3 ) 2 CHNH 3 CuCl 3 has recently been found to be an ideal ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic alternating Heisenberg chain with the energy gap Δ/ k =17∼18 K [H. Manaka et al. : J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 66 (1997) 564]. When an external field H is applied to this compound, the energy gap should vanish at the critical field H c1 = Δ/ g µ B . Just above H c1 , the three-dimensional magnetic long-range order is expected, if the interchain coupling exists. Motivated by this expectation, we performed specific heat measurements over a temperature range from 0.5 to 5 K applying H up to 12 T. As a result, we found a λ-type anomaly of specific heat over 10∼12 T, which indicates a transition to the three-dimensional long range order. The temperature at which the λ-type anomaly appears increases with increasing H . The critical field obtained by extrapolating the curve of the λ peak position versus H is 9.0 T, which is close to that obtained from a magnetization measurement.