Inelastic x-ray scattering is used to investigate charge density wave (CDW) formation and the low-energy lattice dynamics of the underdoped high temperature superconductor ortho-II YBa2Cu3O6.54. We find that, for a temperature ~1/3 of the CDW onset t
emperature (~155 K), the CDW order is static within the resolution of the experiment, that is the inverse lifetime is less than 0.3 meV. In the same temperature region, low-energy phonons near the ordering wavevector of the CDW show large increases in their linewidths. This contrasts with the usual behavior in CDW systems where the phonon anomalies are strongest near the CDW onset temperature
We use polarised neutron diffraction to study the induced magnetization density of near optimally doped Ba(Fe0.935Co0.065)2As2 (T_C=24 K) as a function of magnetic field (1<H<9 T) and temperature (2<T<300 K). The T-dependence of the induced moment in
the superconducting state is consistent with the Yosida function, characteristic of spin-singlet pairing. The induced moment is proportional to applied field for H < 9 T ~ Hc2/6. In addition to the Yosida spin-susceptibility, our results reveal a large zero-field contribution M (H=>0,T=>0)/H ~ 2/3 chi_{normal} which does not scale with the field or number of vortices and is most likely due to the van Vleck susceptibility. Magnetic structure factors derived from the polarization dependence of 15 Bragg reflections were used to make a maximum entropy reconstruction of the induced magnetization distribution in real space. The magnetization is confined to the Fe atoms and the measured density distribution is in good agreement with LAPW band structure calculations which suggest that the relevant bands near the Fermi energy are of the d_{xz/yz} and d_{xy} type.
We report an inelastic neutron scattering study of the spin fluctuations in the nearly-ferromagnetic element palladium. Dispersive over-damped collective magnetic excitations or ``paramagnons are observed up to 128 meV. We analyze our results in term
s of a Moriya-Lonzarich-type spin fluctuation model and estimate the contribution of the spin fluctuations to the low temperature heat capacity. In spite of the paramagnon excitations being relatively strong, their relaxation rates are large. This leads to a small contribution to the low-temperature electronic specific heat.
Single crystal neutron diffraction is used to investigate the magnetic and structural phase diagram of the electron doped superconductor Ba(Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$)$_2$As$_2$. Heat capacity and resistivity measurements have demonstrated that Co doping this
system splits the combined antiferromagnetic and structural transition present in BaFe$_2$As$_2$ into two distinct transitions. For $x$=0.025, we find that the upper transition is between the high-temperature tetragonal and low-temperature orthorhombic structures with ($T_{mathrm{TO}}=99 pm 0.5$ K) and the antiferromagnetic transition occurs at $T_{mathrm{AF}}=93 pm 0.5$ K. We find that doping rapidly suppresses the antiferromagnetism, with antiferromagnetic order disappearing at $x approx 0.055$. However, there is a region of co-existence of antiferromagnetism and superconductivity. The effect of the antiferromagnetic transition can be seen in the temperature dependence of the structural Bragg peaks from both neutron scattering and x-ray diffraction. We infer from this that there is strong coupling between the antiferromagnetism and the crystal lattice.
We use inelastic neutron scattering to measure the magnetic excitations in the underdoped superconductor La2-xSrxCuO4 (x=0.085, Tc=22 K) over energy and temperatures ranges 5 < E < 200 meV and 5 < T < 300 K respectively. At high temperature (T = 300
K), we observe strongly damped excitations with a characteristic energy scale of approximately 50 meV. As the temperature is lowered to T = 30 K, and we move into the pseudogap state, the magnetic excitations become highly structured in energy and momentum below about 60 meV. This change appears to be associated with the development of the pseudogap in the electronic excitations.
We report a detailed inelastic neutron scattering study of the collective magnetic excitations of overdoped superconducting La1.78Sr0.22CuO4 for the energy range 0-160 meV. Our measurements show that overdoping suppresses the strong response present
for optimally doped La2-xSrxCuO4 which is peaked near 50 meV. The remaining response is peaked at incommensurate wavevectors for all energies investigated. We observe a strong high-frequency magnetic response for E >= 80 meV suggesting that significant antiferromagnetic exchange couplings persist well into the overdoped part of the cuprate phase diagram.
