Crystallography-driven molecularization of a two-dimensional spin-3/2 magnet
defies this expectation: despite sizable antiferromagnetic interactions and no evident disorder, it exhibits no magnetic ordering and displays two well-separated thermodynamic crossover scales. We show that this behavior originates from a crystallographydriven molecularization of the magnetic degrees of freedom. The low-symmetry structure partitions the Mn sublattice into inequivalent exchange pathways, generating a pronounced hierarchy that nearly isolates antiferromagnetic hexagons. Magnetic correlations therefore develop in two stages: first within individual hexagons at a scale set by the dominant exchange, and only at much lower temperatures do frustrated inter-hexagon couplings attempt to establish coherence across the lattice. While isolated hexagons reproduce the two-step thermodynamic structure, the experimentally relevant temperature scales emerge only once the hexagons are embedded in the frustrated two-dimensional network. The resulting quantum ground state is magnetically disordered, characterized by strong intrahexagon correlations and rapidly decaying inter-hexagon correlations. These results identify crystallographic inequivalence as a materials-level mechanism for stabilizing molecularized and quantum-disordered states even in large-spin two-dimensional magnets.
Authors
- Harald Jeschke (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8091-7024)
- Hari Borutta (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2327-720X)
- Yasir Iqbal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3387-0120)
- Tobias Müller (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0615-2211)
- Ronny Thomale (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3979-8836)
Institutions
- Okayama University (JP)
- Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IN)
- University of Würzburg (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Reports on Progress in Physics
- Published
- 2026-05-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6633/ae73ef
- Primary Topic
- Magnetism in coordination complexes
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Simons Foundation
- International Centre for Theoretical Sciences
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics
- Indian Institute of Technology Madras