Quantum materials, whose physics is governed by frustrated spin degrees of freedom, hold significant potential for realizing exotic states like quantum spin liquids. Such a behaviour is also predicted in the ground state of the analytically solvable Kitaev model on a honeycomb lattice. The specific properties of fractional excitations in the Kitaev model and their potential applications in quantum computing have motivated the search for its experimental realizations. Among promising realizations of the model are cobaltates, where crystal field effects and strong spin-orbit coupling lead to anisotropic exchange interactions between the effective spin degrees of freedom of the cobalt ions. Alternatively, the physics of localized spins in cobaltates could potentially be better described by the Heisenberg XXZ model with additional interactions between third-nearest neighbours on a honeycomb lattice. The states of cobalt-based systems are significantly influenced by an external magnetic field, which suppresses the magnetic order that replaces the quantum spin liquid state at low temperatures. This master's thesis analyses the influence of magnetic field orientation on the states of the cobalt-based magnet BaCo$_2$(AsO$_4$)$_2$ using nuclear magnetic resonance. Experimental results demonstrate that varying the orientation of the magnetic field can change the critical value of the magnetic field for the suppression of the magnetic order, although this does not lead to a quantum spin liquid but rather to a magnetically polarized state. Nevertheless, at slightly higher temperatures, in the correlated paramagnetic phase, distinctive characteristics of fractional spin excitations can be observed. These excitations lead to a broad maximum in the temperature-dependent spin-lattice relaxation rate $T_{1}^{-1}(T)$. The obtained experimental results confirm the presence of fractional excitations in the correlated paramagnetic phase. However, they cannot conclude whether the magnetism of the cobalt-based system BaCo$_2$(AsO$_4$)$_2$ is better described by the Kitaev model or the $J_{1}$-$J_{3}$ XXZ Heisenberg model.
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