Review: Quantum Magnetism in Minerals

Copper minerals, including well-known gemstones like linarite (photo) or malachite, attracted a lot of recent attention from the point of view of quantum magnetism, magnetic frustration, and low-temperature ordering phenomena. Some of them, e.g. herbertsmithite, are considered promising candidate materials for the realization of new forms of magnetic matter, known as spin liquids. In some cases, the structures of natural minerals are too complex to be synthesized artificially in a chemistry lab, especially in single-crystalline form, and there is a growing number of examples demonstrating the potential of natural specimens for experimental investigations in the field of quantum magnetism. On many other occasions, minerals may guide chemists in the synthesis of novel compounds with unusual magnetic properties. The recently published review article “Quantum Magnetism in Minerals”, authored by the P.I. of the CRC project C03, summarizes experimental and theoretical results in this emergent interdisciplinary field that bridges mineralogy with low-temperature condensed-matter physics and quantum chemistry.

D. S. Inosov,
Quantum Magnetism in Minerals,
Adv. Phys. 67, 149–252 (2018)