Large magnetothermal effect and spin-phonon coupling in a parent insulating cuprate Pr1.3La0.7CuO4
X. F. Sun, I. Tsukada, T. Suzuki, Seiki Komiya, Yoichi Ando
DOI 10.1103/PhysRevB.72.104501 · Physical Review B
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Abstract
The magnetic-field (H) dependence of the thermal conductivity κ of Pr1.3La0.7CuO4 is found to show a pronounced minimum for in-plane fields at low temperature, which is best attributed to the scattering of phonons by free spins that are seen by a Schottky-type specific heat and a Curie-Weiss susceptibility. Besides pointing to a strong spin-phonon coupling in cuprates, the present result demonstrates that the H dependence of the phonon heat transport should not be naively neglected when discussing the κ(H) behavior of cuprates, since the Schottky anomaly is ubiquitously found in cuprates at any doping.