LAUSR

A novel transition metal tellurate single-crystal BaNi2TeO6 with layered honeycomb lattices has been successfully synthesized. The crystal structure of BaNi2TeO6 reveals that there are the Ni2+ honeycomb lattice layers and Te6+ triangle lattice layers in the ab plane. BaNi2TeO6 shows an antiferromagnetic (AFM) transition at ∼25 K, which is almost the same temperature as the Curie-Weiss temperature θ ∼ -27 K, indicating the presence of the AFM interactions without obvious magnetic frustration in the system. However, the field-induced successive magnetic transitions observed at Hc1 ∼ 16.2 T and Hc2 ∼ 42.2 T show the complicated spin structure in BaNi2TeO6. Compared with the isostructural Na2Ni2TeO6, the various magnetic properties indicate that the intercalated ions (Ba2+) can significantly affect the magnetic properties of the layered honeycomb lattices, which may be useful for exploring the spin-liquid state and valence bond liquid state in the layered honeycomb lattice compounds.