The spin glass behavior of Y2Mo2O7 has puzzled physicists for nearly three decades. Free of bulk disorder within the resolution of powder diffraction methods, it is thought that this material is a rare realization of a spin glass resulting from weak
disorder such as bond disorder or local lattice distortions. Here, we report on the single crystal growth of Y2Mo2O7. Using neutron scattering, we present unique isotropic magnetic diffuse scattering arising beneath the spin glass transition despite having a well-ordered structure at the bulk level. Despite our attempts to model the diffuse scattering using a computationally exhaustive search of a class of simple spin Hamiltonians, we were unable to replicate the experimentally observed energy-integrated (diffuse) neutron scattering. A T^2-temperature dependence in the heat capacity and density functional theory calculations hint at significant frozen degeneracy in both the spin and orbital degrees of freedom resulting from spin-orbital coupling (Kugel-Khomskii type) and random fluctuations in the Mo environment at the local level.
The geometrically frustrated double perovskite Ba2YRuO6 has magnetic 4d3 Ru5+ ions decorating an undistorted face-centered cubic (FCC) lattice. This material has been previously reported to exhibit commensurate long-range antiferromagnetic order belo
w T_N = 36K, a factor f = 15 times lower than its Curie-Weiss temperature Theta_CW = -522 K, and purported short-range order to T* = 47K. We report new time-of-flight neutron spectroscopy of Ba2YRuO6 which shows the development of a 5 meV spin gap in the vicinity of the [100] magnetic ordering wavevector below T_N = 36K, with the transition to long-range order occurring at T* = 47K. We also report spin waves extending to 14 meV, a surprisingly small bandwidth in light of the large Theta_CW. We compare the spin gap and bandwidth to relevant neutron studies of the isostructural 4d1 material Ba2YMoO6,and discuss the results in the framework of relatively strong spin-orbit coupling expected in 4d magnetic systems.
CuMoO4 is a triclinic quantum magnet based on S = 1/2 moments at the Cu2+ site. It has recently attracted interest due to the remarkable changes in its chromic and volumetric properties at high temperatures, and in its magnetic properties at low temp
eratures. This material exhibits a first order structural phase transition at T_C ~ 190 K as well as a magnetic phase transition at T_N ~ 1.75 K. We report low temperature heat capacity measurements as well as extensive elastic and inelastic neutron scattering measurements on powder samples taken above and below T_N. We observe neutron diffraction consistent with a simple (1/2, 0, 0) antiferromagnetic structure indicating a doubling of the a-axis periodicity below T_N. In addition, inelastic neutron scattering above a spin gap of ~ 2.3 meV is consistent with triplet excitations out of paired S = 1/2 moments which form singlet dimers. Low lying spin wave excitations are also observed and these originate from ordered S = 1/2 moments below T_N. Taken together these measurements show the ground state of CuMoO4 to display both non-magnetic singlets, and ferromagnetically-coupled spins coexisting within an antiferromagnetic structure below T_N ~ 1.75 K.
