No Arabic abstract
We report the low temperature magnetic properties of Nd$^{3+}$ pyrochlore $rm Nd_2ScNbO_7$. Susceptibility and magnetization show an easy-axis moment, and heat capacity reveals a phase transition to long range order at $T_N=371(2)$ mK with a fully recovered $Delta S = R ln(2)$, 53% of it recovered for $T>T_N$. Elastic neutron scattering shows a long-range all-in-all-out magnetic order with low-$Q$ diffuse elastic scattering. Inelastic neutron scattering shows a low-energy flat-band, indicating a magnetic Hamiltonian similar to $rm Nd_2Zr_2O_7$. Nuclear hyperfine excitations measured by ultra-high-resolution neutron backscattering indicates a distribution of static electronic moments below $T_N$, which may be due to B-site disorder influencing Nd crystal electric fields. Analysis of heat capacity data shows an unexpected $T$-linear or $T^{3/2}$ term which is inconsistent with conventional magnon quasiparticles, but is consistent with fractionalized spinons or gapless local spin excitations. We use legacy data to show similar behavior in $rm Nd_2Zr_2O_7$. Comparing local static moments also reveals a suppression of the nuclear Schottky anomaly in temperature, evidencing a fraction of Nd sites with nearly zero static moment, consistent with exchange-disorder-induced random singlet formation. Taken together, these measurements suggest an unusual fluctuating magnetic ground state which mimics a spin-liquid -- but may not actually be one.
Dimensionality and symmetry play deterministic roles in the laws of Nature. They are important tools to characterize and understand quantum phase transitions, especially in the limit of strong correlations between spin, orbit, charge, and structural degrees of freedom. Using newly-developed, high-pressure resonant x-ray magnetic and charge diffraction techniques, we have discovered a quantum critical point in Cd2Os2O7 as the all-in-all-out (AIAO) antiferromagnetic order is continuously suppressed to zero temperature and, concomitantly, the cubic lattice structure continuously changes from space group Fd-3m to F-43m. Surrounded by three phases of different time reversal and spatial inversion symmetries, the quantum critical region anchors two phase lines of opposite curvature, with striking departures from a mean-field form at high pressure. As spin fluctuations, lattice breathing modes, and quasiparticle excitations interact in the quantum critical region, we argue that they present the necessary components for strongly-coupled quantum criticality in this three-dimensional compound.
The question of structural disorder and its effects on magnetism is relevant to a number of spin liquid candidate materials. Although commonly thought of as a route to spin glass behavior, here we describe a system in which the structural disorder results in long-range antiferromagnetic order due to local symmetry breaking. Nd$_2$ScNbO$_7$ is shown to have a dispersionless gapped excitation observed in other neodymium pyrochlores below T$_N$ = 0.37 K through polarized and inelastic neutron scattering. However the dispersing spin waves are not observed. This excited mode is shown to occur in only 14(2) % of the neodymium ions through spectroscopy and is consistent with total scattering measurements as well as the magnitude of the dynamic moment 0.26(2) $mu_B$. The remaining magnetic species order completely into the all-in all-out Ising antiferromagnetic structure. This can be seen as a result of local symmetry breaking due disordered Sc$^{+3}$ and Nb$^{+5}$ ions about the A-site. From this work, it has been established that B-site disorder restores the dipole-like behaviour of the Nd$^{+3}$ ions compared to the Nd$_2$B$_2$O$_7$ parent series.
We report measurements performed on a polycrystalline sample of the pyrochlore compound Nd2Sn2O7. It undergoes a second order magnetic phase transition at Tc ~ 0.91 K to a noncoplanar all-in-all-out magnetic structure of the Nd3+ magnetic moments. The thermal behavior of the low temperature specific heat fingerprints excitations with linear dispersion in a three-dimensional lattice. The temperature independent spin-lattice relaxation rate measured below Tc and the anomalously slow paramagnetic spin dynamics detected up to ~ 30 Tc are suggested to be due to magnetic short-range correlations in unidimensional spin clusters, i.e., spin loops. The observation of a spontaneous field in muon spin relaxation measurements is associated with the absence of a divergence-free field for the ground state of an all-in-all-out pyrochlore magnet as predicted recently.
We investigate the metal-insulator transition (MIT) of the osmium pyrochlore oxide Cd2Os2O7 through transport and magnetization measurements. The MIT and a magnetic transition to the all-in/all-out (AIAO) order occur simultaneously at 227 K. We propose a mechanism based on a Lifshitz transition induced by the AIAO magnetic order probably via strong spin-orbit couplings in the specific semimetallic band structure. It is suggested, moreover, that two observed puzzles, a finite conductivity near T = 0 and an emergence of weak ferromagnetic moments, are not bulk properties but originate at magnetic domain walls between two kinds of AIAO domains.
Continuous quantum phase transitions involving all-in-all-out (AIAO) antiferromagnetic order in strongly spin-orbit-coupled 5d compounds could give rise to various exotic electronic phases and strongly-coupled quantum critical phenomena. Here we experimentally trace the AIAO spin order in Sm2Ir2O7 using direct resonant x-ray magnetic diffraction techniques under high pressure. The magnetic order is suppressed at a critical pressure Pc=6.30 GPa, while the lattice symmetry remains in the cubic Fd-3m space group across the quantum critical point. Comparing pressure tuning and the chemical series R2Ir2O7 reveals that the suppression of the AIAO order and the approach to the spin-disordered state is characterized by contrasting evolutions of both the pyrochlore lattice constant a and the trigonal distortion x. The former affects the 5d bandwidth, the latter the Ising anisotropy, and as such we posit that the opposite effects of pressure and chemical tuning lead to spin fluctuations with different Ising and Heisenberg character in the quantum critical region. Finally, the observed low-pressure scale of the AIAO quantum phase transition in Sm2Ir2O7 identifies a circumscribed region of P-T space for investigating the putative magnetic Weyl-semimetal state.