Strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC) effects of heavy $d$-orbital elements have long been neglected in describing the ground states of their compounds thereby overlooking a variety of fascinating and yet unexplored magnetic and electronic states, until r
ecently. The spin-orbit entangled electrons in such compounds can get stabilized into unusual spin-orbit multiplet $J$-states which warrants severe investigations. Here we show using detailed magnetic and thermodynamic studies and theoretical calculations the ground state of Ba$_3$ZnIr$_2$O$_9$, a 6$H$ hexagonal perovskite is a close realisation of the elusive $J$~=~0 state. However, we find that local Ir moments are spontaneously generated due to the comparable energy scales of the singlet-triplet splitting driven by SOC and the superexchange interaction mediated by strong intra-dimer hopping. While the Ir ions within the structural Ir$_2$O$_9$ dimer prefers to form a spin-orbit singlet state (SOS) with no resultant moment, substantial interdimer exchange interactions from a frustrated lattice ensure quantum fluctuations till the lowest measured temperatures and stabilize a spin-orbital liquid phase.
An unusual atomic scale chemical fluctuation in LaSrVMoO$_6$, in terms of narrow patches of La,V and Sr,Mo-rich phases, has been probed in detail to understand the origin of such a chemical state. Exhaustive tuning of the equilibrium synthesis parame
ters showed that the extent of phase separation can never be melted down below an unit cell dimension making it impossible to achieve the conventional $B$-site ordered structure, which establishes that the observed `inhomogeneous patch-like structure with minimum dimension of few angstroms is a reality in LaSrVMoO$_6$. Therefore, another type of local chemical order, hitherto unknown in double perovskites, gets introduced here. X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy elemental mapping, magnetic, and various spectroscopic studies have been carried out on samples, synthesized under different conditions. These experimental results in conjunction with {it ab-initio} electronic structure calculation revealed that it is the energy stability, gained by typical La-O covalency as in LaVO$_3$, that leads to the preferential La,V and Sr,Mo ionic proximity, and the consequent patchy structure.
Different methods of texturing polycrystalline materials are developed over years to use/probe anisotropic material properties with relative ease, where complicated and expensive single crystal growth processes could be avoided. In this paper, partic
le morphology assisted texturing in multiferroic MnWO$_4$ has been discussed. Detailed powder x-ray diffraction vis-a-vis scanning electron microscopic studies on differently annealed and processed samples have been employed to probe the giant texturing effect in powdered MnWO$_4$. A quantitative measure of the texturing has been carried out by means of Rietveld analysis technique. Qualitative presentation of magnetic and dielectric data on textured pellet demonstrated the development of clear anisotropic physical properties in polycrystalline pellets. Finally, we established that the highly anisotropic plate like particles are formed due to easy cleavage of the significantly large crystalline grains.
