MAGNETIC AND THERMAL PROPERTIES OF HoF3-ORDERING IN A SINGLET GROUND STATE

Abstract

Holmium trifluoride, HoF3 has Clh symmetry at H O ~ + sites, resulting in a singlet electronic ground state and low-lying excited states. Magnetic, thermal and spectroscopic experiments show that HoF3 orders antiferromagnetically at T N = 0.53 K , which can be interpreted in terms of molecular field theory applied to a non-Kramers doublet S' = 112.