We study $S=1/2$ dimer excitation in a coupled chain and dimer compound Cu$_2$Fe$_2$Ge$_4$O$_{13} by inelastic neutron scattering technique. The Zeeman split of the dimer triplet by a staggered field is observed at low temperature. With the increase of temperature the effect of random field is detected by a drastic broadening of the triplet excitation. Basic dynamics of dimer in the staggered and random fields are experimentally identified in Cu$_2$Fe$_2$Ge$_4$O$_{13}.
Cu$_2$Fe$_2$Ge$_4$O$_{13}$ is a bicomponent compound that consists of Cu dimers and Fe chains with separate energy scale. By inelastic neutron scattering technique with high-energy resolution we observed the indirect Fe - Fe exchange coupling by way of the Cu dimers. The obtained parameters of the effective indirect interaction and related superexchange interactions are consistent with those estimated semi-statically. The consistency reveals that the Cu dimers play the role of nonmagnetic media in the indirect magnetic interaction.
The unusual magnetic properties of a novel low-dimensional quantum ferrimagnet Cu$_2$Fe$_2$Ge$_4$O$_{13}$ are studied using bulk methods, neutron diffraction and inelastic neutron scattering. It is shown that this material can be described in terms of two low-dimensional quantum spin subsystems, one gapped and the other gapless, characterized by two distinct energy scales. Long-range magnetic ordering observed at low temperatures is a cooperative phenomenon caused by weak coupling of these two spin networks.
We report the results of a $^{45}$Sc nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) study on the quasi-one-dimensional compound Cu$_2$Sc$_2$Ge$_4$O$_{13}$ at temperatures between 4 and 300 K. This material has been a subject of current interest due to indications of spin gap behavior. The temperature-dependent NMR shift exhibits a character of low-dimensional magnetism with a negative broad maximum at $T_{max}$ $simeq $ 170 K. Below $% T_{max}$, the NMR shifts and spin lattice relaxation rates clearly indicate activated responses, confirming the existence of a spin gap in Cu$_2$Sc$_2$Ge% $_4$O$_{13}$. The experimental NMR data can be well fitted to the spin dimer model, yielding a spin gap value of about 275 K which is close to the 25 meV peak found in the inelastic neutron scattering measurement. A detailed analysis further points out that the nearly isolated dimer picture is proper for the understanding of spin gap nature in Cu$_2$Sc$_2$Ge$_4$O$_{13}$.
Magnetic excitations of the recently discovered frustrated spin-1/2 two-leg ladder system Li$_2$Cu$_2$O(SO$_4$)$_2$ are investigated using inelastic neutron scattering, magnetic susceptibility and infrared absorption measurements. Despite the presence of a magnetic dimerization concomitant with the tetragonal-to-triclinic structural distortion occurring below 125 K, neutron scattering experiments reveal the presence of dispersive triplet excitations above a spin gap of $Delta = 10.6$ meV at 1.5 K, a value consistent with the estimates extracted from magnetic susceptibility. The likely detection of these spin excitations in infrared spectroscopy is explained by invoking a dynamic Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya mechanism in which light is coupled to the dimer singlet-to-triplet transition through an optical phonon. These results are qualitatively explained by exact diagonalization and higher-order perturbation calculations carried out on the basis of the dimerized spin Hamiltonian derived from first-principles.
The influence of a staggered molecular field in frustrated rare-earth pyrochlores, produced via the magnetic iridium occupying the transition metal site, can generate exotic ground states, such as the fragmentation of the magnetization in the Ho compound. At variance with the Ising Ho$^{3+}$ moment, we focus on the behavior of the quasi isotropic magnetic moment of the Gd$^{3+}$ ion at the rare-earth site. By means of macroscopic measurements and neutron scattering, we find a complex situation where different components of the magnetic moment contribute to two antiferromagnetic non-collinear arrangements: a high temperature all in - all out order induced by the Ir molecular field, and Palmer and Chalker correlations that tend to order at much lower temperatures. This is enabled by the anisotropic nature of the Gd-Gd interactions and requires a weak easy-plane anisotropy of the Gd$^{3+}$ moment due to the mixing of the ground state with multiplets of higher spectral terms.