No Arabic abstract
We present the results of neutron diffraction studies on polycrystals of a metallic kagome lattice, Tb3Ru4Al12, reported recently to undergo reentrant magnetism, with the onset of long range antiferromagnetic order below (TN=) 22 K and spin-glass features below about 17 K. The present results reveal long-range antiferromagnetic order of an incommensurate type with the moments oriented along c-axis at all temperatures below TN. There are however notable changes in the T dependence of propagation vector along b-axis across 17 K. An observation of interest is that there is no decrease of intensity of magnetic Bragg peaks on entrance into the glassy phase (that is, below 17 K). This finding suggests that the magnetism of this compound is an exotic one and we wonder whether this compound is an example for dynamical spin-glass freezing phenomenon, as a consequence of geometrical frustration.
We report magnetic behavior of two intermetallics-based kagome lattices, Tb3Ru4Al12 and Er3Ru4Al12, crystallizing in the Gd3Ru4Al12-type hexagonal crystal structure, by measurements in the range 1.8-300 K with bulk experimental techniques (ac and dc magnetization, heat-capacity and magnetoresistance). The main finding is that the Tb compound, known to order antiferromagnetically below (T_N=) 22 K, shows glassy characteristics at lower temperatures (<15K), thus characterizing this compound as a re-entrant spin-glass. The data reveal that glassy phase is quite complex and is of a cluster type. Since the glassy behavior was not seen for the Gd analogue in the past literature, this finding for the Tb compound emphasizes that this kagome family could provide an opportunity to explore the role of higher order (such as quadrupole) in bringing out magnetic frustration. Additional findings reported here for this compound are: (i) The temperature dependence of magnetic susceptibility and electrical resistivity in the range 12 - 20 K are found to be hysteretic leading to a magnetic phase in this temperature range, mimicking disorder-induced first-order magnetic phase-transition. (ii) Features attributable to an interesting magnetic phase co-existence phenomenon in the magnetoresistance in zero field, after cycling across metamagnetic transition fields, are observed. With respect to the Er compound, we do not find any evidence for long-range magnetic ordering down to 2 K, but this appears to be on the verge of magnetic order at 2 K.
The magnetic properties of Co3V2O8 have been studied by single-crystal neutron-diffraction. In zero magnetic field, the observed broadening of the magnetic Bragg peaks suggests the presence of disorder both in the low-temperature ferromagnetic and in the higher-temperature antiferromagnetic state. The field dependence of the intensity and position of the magnetic reflections in Co3V2O8 reveals a complex sequence of phase transitions in this Kagome staircase compound. For H//a, a commensurate-incommensurate-commensurate transition is found in a field of 0.072 T in the antiferromagnetic phase at 7.5 K. For H//c at low-temperature, an applied field induces an unusual transformation from a ferromagnetic to an antiferromagnetic state at about 1 T accompanied by a sharp increase in magnetisation.
In two-dimensional (2D) metallic kagome lattice materials, destructive interference of electronic hopping pathways around the kagome bracket can produce nearly localized electrons, and thus electronic bands that are flat in momentum space. When ferromagnetic order breaks the degeneracy of the electronic bands and splits them into the spin-up majority and spin-down minority electronic bands, quasiparticle excitations between the spin-up and spin-down flat bands should form a narrow localized spin-excitation Stoner continuum coexisting with well-defined spin waves in the long wavelengths. Here we report inelastic neutron scattering studies of spin excitations in 2D metallic Kagome lattice antiferromagnetic FeSn and paramagnetic CoSn, where angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments found spin-polarized and nonpolarized flat bands, respectively, below the Fermi level. Although our initial measurements on FeSn indeed reveal well-defined spin waves extending well above 140 meV coexisting with a flat excitation at 170 meV, subsequent experiments on CoSn indicate that the flat mode actually arises mostly from hydrocarbon scattering of the CYTOP-M commonly used to glue the samples to aluminum holder. Therefore, our results established the evolution of spin excitations in FeSn and CoSn, and identified an anomalous flat mode that has been overlooked by the neutron scattering community for the past 20 years.
We report $^{23}$Na and $^{59}$Co nuclear magnetic (NMR) and quadrupolar resonance (NQR) studies for the $x=2/3$ phase of the lamellar oxide Na$_{x}$CoO$_{2}$, which allowed us to establish reliably the atomic order of the Na layers and their stacking between the CoO$_{2}$ slabs. We evidence that the Na$^{+}$ order stabilizes filled non magnetic Co$^{3+}$ ions on 25% of the cobalt sites arranged in a triangular sublattice. The transferred holes are delocalized on the 75% complementary cobalt sites which unexpectedly display a planar cobalt kagom{e} structure. These experimental results resolve a puzzling issue by precluding localized moments pictures for the magnetic properties. They establish that the quasi ferromagnetic properties result from a narrow band connecting a frustrated arrangement of atomic orbitals, and open the route to unravel through similar studies the electronic properties of the diverse ordered phases of sodium cobaltates.
The magnetic structure of CsCo2Se2 was investigated using single-crystal neutron diffraction technique. An antiferromagnetic transition with the propagation vector (0,0,1) was observed at T_N = 78 K. The Co magnetic moment 0.772(6) {mu}_B at 10 K pointing in the basal plane couples ferromagnetically in the plane which stacks antiferromagnetically along the c direction. Tuning and suppressing the interplane antiferromagnetic interaction may be crucial to induce the material to a superconducting state.