Thermal Conductivity in the Triangular-Lattice Antiferromagnet Ba3CoSb2O9

We have measured the thermal conductivity in the ab-plane, $κ$ab, and along the c-axis, $κ$c, of single crystals of the S = 1/2 triangular-lattice antiferromagnet Ba3CoSb2O9 in zero field and magnetic fields. In zero field, it has been found that both $κ$ab and $κ$c show a similar broad peak around 40 K, suggesting that the thermal conductivity due to phonons is dominant in this compound and that the mean free path of phonons is suppressed so much by strong magnetic-fluctuations due to the magnetic frustration. It has also been found that both $κ$ab and $κ$c show a kink at the antiferromagnetic transition temperature TN. In magnetic fields parallel to the ab-plane up to 14 T, magnetic-field dependences of both $κ$ab and $κ$c at temperatures below and above TN have been found to be understood taking into account the phonon-magnon scattering in the so-called 120$°$ structure phase and the up-up-down (UUD) phase, while the minima of $κ$ab and $κ$c observed in the middle of the UUD phase have not been understood. This suggests the occurrence of some change of the magnetic state in the middle of the UUD phase.

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