Abstract
We report the revised crystal structure, static and dynamic magnetic properties of quasi-two dimensional honeycomb-lattice silver delafossite Ag3Co2SbO6. The magnetic susceptibility and specific heat data are consistent with the onset of antiferromagnetic long range order at low temperatures with Neel temperature TN similar to 21.2 K. In addition, the magnetization curves revealed a field-induced (spin-flop type) transition below TN in moderate magnetic fields. The GGA+U calculations show the importance of the orbital degrees of freedom, which maintain a hierarchy of exchange interaction in the system. The strongest antiferromagnetic exchange coupling was found in the shortest Co-Co pairs and is due to direct and superexchange interaction between the half-filled xz + yz orbitals pointing directly to each other. The other four out of six nearest neighbor exchanges within the cobalt hexagon are suppressed, since for these bonds the active half-filled orbitals turned out to be parallel and do not overlap. The electron spin resonance (ESR) spectra reveal a broad absorption line attributed to the Co2+ ion in an octahedral coordination with an average effective g-factor g = 2.40 +/- 0.05 at room temperature and show strong divergence of the ESR parameters below similar to 150 K, which implies an extended region of short-range correlations. Based on the results of magnetic and thermodynamic studies in applied fields, we propose a magnetic phase diagram for the new honeycomb-lattice delafossite.