Antiferromagnetism and Ising ground states in the rare-earth garnet Nd3Ga5O12

In this paper, we investigate the low temperature magnetic properties of the rare-earth garnet compound Nd3Ga5O12 in detail by means of magnetization, specific heat, and magnetocaloric effect measurements. The magnetic thermal properties along with the crystal field calculations reveal that the Nd3+ ions form into a frustrated hyper-kagome lattice with connected triangles have an Ising-like ground state with the easy axis along the local [100], [010], and [001] directions. Instead of a quantum spin liquid ground state, an antiferromagnetically ordered state is found below TN = 0.52 K. With applying field in the [111] direction, the antiferromagnetic order is suppressed at the critical field of Bc = 0.75 T, and enhancement of the critical fluctuations with linear crossover behaviors is observed near the critical point.