No Arabic abstract
Neutron powder diffraction (NPD) study of textit{Ln}MnSbO (textit{Ln }$=$ La or Ce) reveals differences between the magnetic ground state of the two compounds due to the strong Ce-Mn coupling compared to La-Mn. The two compounds adopt the textit{P4/nmm} space group down to 2 K and whereas magnetization measurements do not show obvious anomaly at high temperatures, NPD reveals a C-type antiferromagnetic (AFM) order below $T_{mathrm{N}} = 255 $ K for LaMnSbO and 240 K for CeMnSbO. While the magnetic structure of LaMnSbO is preserved to base temperature, a sharp transition at $T_{mathrm{SR}} = 4.5 $K is observed in CeMnSbO due to a spin-reorientation (SR) transition of the Mn$^{mathrm{2+}}$ magnetic moments from pointing along the $c$-axis to the textit{ab}-plane. The SR transition in CeMnSbO is accompanied by a simultaneous long-range AFM ordering of the Ce moments which indicates that the Mn SR transition is driven by the Ce-Mn coupling. The ordered moments are found to be somewhat smaller than those expected for Mn$^{mathrm{2+}}$ ($S = 5/2$) in insulators, but large enough to suggest that these compounds belong to the class of local-moment antiferromagnets. The lower $T_{mathrm{Nthinspace }}$ found in these two compounds compared to the As-based counterparts ($T_{mathrm{N}} = 317$ for LaMnAsO, $T_{mathrm{N}} = 347$ K for CeMnAsO) indicates that the Mn-$Pn$ ($Pn=$ As or Sb) hybridization that mediates the superexchange Mn-$Pn$-Mn coupling is weaker for the Sb-based compounds.
We have performed systematic first principles study of the electronic structure and band topology properties of $LnPn$ compounds ($Ln$=Ce, Pr, Gd, Sm, Yb; $Pn$=Sb, Bi). Assuming the $f$-electrons are well localized in these materials, both hybrid functional and modified Becke-Johnson calculations yield electronic structure in good agreement with experimental observations, while generalized gradient approximation calculations severely overestimate the band
Electrical resistivity measurements as a function of temperature between 1 K and 300 K were performed at various pressures up to 3 GPa on the superconducting layered compounds Ln(O0.5F0.5)BiS2 (Ln = La, Ce). At atmospheric pressure, La(O0.5F0.5)BiS2 and Ce(O0.5F0.5)BiS2 have superconducting critical temperatures, Tc, of 3.3 K and 2.3 K, respectively. For both compounds, the superconducting critical temperature Tc initially increases, reaches a maximum value of 10.1 K for La(O0.5F0.5)BiS2 and 6.7 K for CeO(0.5F0.5)BiS2, and then gradually decreases with increasing pressure. Both samples also exhibit transient behavior in the region between the lower Tc phase near atmospheric pressure and the higher Tc phase. This region is characterized by a broadening of the superconducting transition, in which Tc and the transition width, delta Tc, are reversible with increasing and decreasing pressure. There is also an appreciable pressure-induced and hysteretic suppression of semiconducting behavior up to the pressure at which the maximum value of Tc is found. At pressures above the value at which the maximum in Tc occurs, there is a gradual decrease of Tc and further suppression of the semiconducting behavior with pressure, both of which are reversible.
We investigate the effect of external pressure on magnetic order in undoped LnFeAsO (Ln = La, Ce, Pr, La) by using muon-spin relaxation measurements and ab-initio calculations. Both magnetic transition temperature $T_m$ and Fe magnetic moment decrease with external pressure. The effect is observed to be lanthanide dependent with the strongest response for Ln = La and the weakest for Ln = Sm. The trend is qualitatively in agreement with our DFT calculations. The same calculations allow us to assign a value of 0.68(2) $mu_B$ to the Fe moment, obtained from an accurate determination of the muon sites. Our data further show that the magnetic lanthanide order transitions do not follow the simple trend of Fe, possibly as a consequence of the different $f$-electron overlap.
We present the results of muon-spin relaxation ($mu^{+}$SR) measurements on antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic spin chains. In antiferromagnetic CuF$_{2}$(pyz) we identify a transition to long range magnetic order taking place at $T_{mathrm{N}} = 0.6(1)$ K, allowing us to estimate a ratio with the intrachain exchange of $T_{mathrm{N}}/|J| approx 0.1$ and the ratio of interchain to intrachain exchange coupling as $|J/J| approx 0.05$. The ferromagnetic chain [Sm(hfac)$_{3}$(boaDTDA)]$_{n}$ undergoes an ordering transition at $T_{mathrm{c}}=2.8(1)$ K, seen via a broad freezing of dynamic fluctuations on the muon (microsecond) timescale and implying $T_{mathrm{c}}/|J| approx 0.6$. The ordered radical moment continues to fluctuate on this timescale down to 0.3 K, while the Sm moments remain disordered. In contrast, the radical spins in [La(hfac)$_{3}$(boaDTDA)]$_{n}$ remain magnetically disordered down to $T=0.1$ K suggesting $T_{mathrm{c}}/|J| < 0.17$.
We prepared the samples K$_{1-x}$Ln$_{x}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ (Ln=Sm, Nd and La) with ThCr$_2$Si$_2$-type structure. These samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, resistivity, susceptibility and thermoelectric power (TEP). Substitution of Ln (Ln=La, Nd and Sm) for K in K$_{1-x}$Ln$_{x}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ system raises the superconducting transition temperature to 34-36 K. The TEP measurements indicate that the TEP of K$_{1-x}$Ln$_{x}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ is positive, being similar to the case of the Ba$_{1-x}$K$_{x}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ system with p-type carrier. In the K$_{1-x}$Ln$_{x}$Fe$_2$As$_2$ system, the superconducting $KFe_2As_2$ with $T_csim 3$ K is the parent compound, and no structural and spin-density wave instabilities exist in this system.