High antiferromagnetic transition temperature of the honeycomb compound SrRu2 O6

We study the high-temperature magnetic order in a quasi-two-dimensional honeycomb compound SrRu2O6 by measuring magnetization and neutron powder diffraction with both polarized and unpolarized neutrons. SrRu2O6 crystallizes into the hexagonal lead antimonate (PbSb2O6, space group P3¯1m) structure with layers of edge-sharing RuO6 octahedra separated by Sr2+ ions. SrRu2O6 is found to order at TN=565 K with Ru moments coupled antiferromagnetically both in plane and out of plane. The magnetic moment is 1.30(2) μB/Ru at room temperature and is along the crystallographic c axis in the G-type magnetic structure. We perform density functional calculations with constrained random-phase approximation (RPA) to obtain the electronic structure and effective intra- and interorbital interaction parameters. The projected density of states shows strong hybridization between Ru 4d and O 2p. By downfolding to the target t2g bands we extract the effective magnetic Hamiltonian and perform Monte Carlo simulations to determine the transition temperature as a function of inter- and intraplane couplings. We find a weak interplane coupling, 3% of the strong intraplane coupling, permits three-dimensional magnetic order at the observed TN.