Low temperature heat capacity measurements of the spin-liquid states of hydrogenated and deuterated κ-(BEDT-TTF) 2Cu 2(CN) 3

Abstract

Heat capacity measurements of organic triangular lattice compound κ-(BEDT-TTF) 2Cu 2(CN) 3 were performed to discuss the low energy excitations from the spin-liquid ground states. Existence of the T-linear electronic coefficient with finite electronic heat capacity coefficient γ was confirmed in three different samples from different batches, although small sample dependence was observed in the absolute values of the heat capacities. Concerning the sample in which hydrogen atoms in ethylene group in BEDT-TTF molecule have been substituted by deuterons, we have observed almost similar thermodynamic behavior as the hydrogenated sample. The absence of drastic change of electronic properties of this compound is consistent with the electronic phase diagram given by Kurosaki et al. [11] (Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 (2005) 17001). The obtained data are well consistent with the previous heat capacity experiments. The existence of the γ term demonstrates that the excitations from the quantum spin-liquid states show a gapless behavior at least down to 0.7 K.