Complex magnetism in a transition metal nitride.

Ca2CoN2 exhibits an incommensurate magnetic ground state below 54 K, with a double-k spin density wave characterized by k = 0.57 in its bct-derived lattice.

• Why it matters: bct transition-metal systems often show square-layer-dominated magnetism, yet other bct ground states near spin-liquid instabilities remain scarce and poorly realized.
• What they did: The team synthesized Ca2CoN2 at high pressure and used magnetisation and neutron diffraction to determine an incommensurate order and propagation vectors (k00) and (0k0) with k = 0.57.
• The result: The observed phase matches expectations for proximity to a crossover at k = 0.64–0.69 toward a modulated spin liquid, suggesting chemical tuning could probe related quantum behavior.

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