No Arabic abstract
We present a 57Fe Mossbauer spectroscopy study of the two incommensurate magnetic phases in the multiferroic material FeVO4. We devise lineshapes appropriate for planar elliptical and collinear modulated magnetic structures and show that they reproduce very well the Mossbauer spectra in FeVO4, in full qualitative agreement with a previous neutron diffraction study. Quantitatively, our spectra provide precise determinations of the characteristics of the elliptical and modulated structures which are in good agreement with the neutron diffraction results. We find that the hyperfine field elliptical modulation persists as T goes to 0, which we attribute to an anisotropy of the hyperfine interaction since a moment modulation is forbidden at T=0 for a spin only ion like Fe3+.
57Fe Mossbauer spectroscopy measurements were performed on a powdered CuFe2Ge2 sample that orders antiferromagnetically at ~ 175 K. Whereas a paramagnetic doublet was observed above the Neel temperature, a superposition of paramagnetic doublet and magnetic sextet (in approximately 0.5 : 0.5 ratio) was observed in the magnetically ordered state, suggesting a magnetic structure similar to a double-Q spin density wave with half of the Fe paramagnetic and another half bearing static moment of ~ 0.5 - 1 mu_B. These results call for a re-evaluation of the recent neutron scattering data and band structure calculations.
Temperature dependent measurements of 57Fe Mossbauer spectra on CaFe2As2 single crystals in the tetragonal and collapsed tetragonal phases are reported. Clear features in the temperature dependencies of the isomer shift, relative spectra area and quadrupole splitting are observed at the transition from the tetragonal to the collapsed tetragonal phase. From the temperature dependent isomer shift and spectral area data, an average stiffening of the phonon modes in the collapsed tetragonal phase is inferred. The quadrupole splitting increases by ~25% on cooling from room temperature to ~100 K in the tetragonal phase and is only weakly temperature dependent at low temperatures in the collapsed tetragonal phase, in agreement with the anisotropic thermal expansion in this material. In order to gain microscopic insight about these measurements we perform ab initio density functional theory calculations of the electric field gradient and the electron density of CaFe2As2 in both phases. By comparing the experimental data with the calculations we are able to fully characterize the crystal structure of the samples in the collapsed-tetragonal phase through determination of the As z-coordinate. Based on the obtained temperature dependent structural data we are able to propose charge saturation of the Fe - As bond region as the mechanism behind the stabilization of the collapsed-tetragonal phase at ambient pressure.
We report on the magnetic behavior of oxygen deficient LaFeAsO1-x (x-0.10) compound, prepared by one-step synthesis, which crystallizes in the tetragonal (S.G. P4/nmm) structure at room temperature. Resistivity measurements show a strong anomaly near 150 K, which is ascribed to the spin density wave (SDW) instability. On the other hand, dc magnetization data shows paramagnetic-like features down to 5 K, with an effective moment of 0.83 mB/Fe. 57Fe Mossbauer studies (MS) have been performed at 95 and 200 K. The spectra at both temperatures are composed of two sub-spectra. At 200 K the major one (88%), is almost a singlet, and corresponds to those Fe nuclei, which have two oxygen ions in their close vicinity. The minor one, with a large quadrupole splitting, corresponds to Fe nuclei, which have vacancies in their immediate neighborhood. The spectrum at 95 K, exhibits a broadened magnetic split major (84%) sub-spectrum and a very small magnetic splitting in the minor subspectrum. The relative intensities of the subspectra facilitate in estimating the actual amount of oxygen vacancies in the compound to be 7.0(5)%, instead of the nominal LaFeAsO0.90. These results, when compared with reported 57Fe MS of non-superconducting LaFeAsO and superconducting LaFeAsO0.9F0.1, confirm that the studied LaFeAsO0.93 is a superconductivity-magnetism crossover compound of the newly discovered Fe based superconducting family.
We have investigated the crystal and magnetic structures of the trigonal iron-boracite Fe3B7O13X with X = OH by neutron diffraction. Neutron diffraction enables us to locate the hydrogen atom of the hydroxyl group and determine the magnetic ground state of this member of the multiferroic boracite family. No evidence was found for a monoclinic distortion in the magnetic ordered state. The magnetic symmetry allows for magnetoelectric and ferroelectric properties. The N/eel tempera- ture TN of 4.86(4) K confirms the general trends within the boracites that TN decreases from X = I > Br > Cl > OH. Surprisingly while Fe3B7O13OH exhibits the largest frustration with $|theta/T_N| = 5.6$ within the Fe3B7O13X series, no reduction of the magnetic moment is found using neutron diffraction.
In the orthorhombic manganites o-RMnO3, where R is a heavy rare earth (R = Gd-Yb), the Mn3+ sublattice is known to undergo two magnetic transitions. The low temperature phase has an antiferromagnetic structure (collinear or elliptical), which has been well characterized by neutron diffraction in most of these compounds. The intermediate phase, occurring in a narrow temperature range (a few K), is documented for R = Gd-Ho as a collinear modulated structure, incommensurate with the lattice spacings. We report here on a 57Fe Mossbauer study of 2% 57Fe doped o-YbMnO3, where the spin only Fe3+ ion plays the role of a magnetic probe. From the analysis of the shape of the magnetic hyperfine Mossbauer spectra, we show that the magnetic structure of the intermediate phase in o-YbMnO3 (38.0 K < T < 41.5 K) is also modulated and incommensurate.