ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Local origin of the fluctuating groundstate in an S=1/2 spinel

Abstract: Upon cooling, all common liquids are observed to freeze. This observation is similarly ubiquitous for magnetic materials, where the magnetic moments most often line up in a rigid fashion at low temperature. However, in materials with single unpaired electrons, quantum fluctuations may instead induce a fluctuating, 'spin-liquid' ground state. This is most pronounced when the interactions between neighbouring atoms compete. We have characterised one such pyrochlore material, and shown that no spin-freezing occurs. Instead, the local crystallographic symmetry is broken, and the degree of atomic order reduces. Our key objective with this proposal is to perform neutron total scattering experiments to identify the local distortions. This will determine if a dimensional reduction to a dimerised or tetramer ground state prevents spin-order, and explain the unusual dynamic ground state.

Principal Investigator: Dr Simon Kimber
Experimenter: Dr Christian Balz
Local Contact: Professor Paul Henry
Experimenter: Miss Siham Mouhtadi
Experimenter: Mr Daniel Szczerba

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1910560

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1910560

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Dr Simon Kimber et al; (2019): Local origin of the fluctuating groundstate in an S=1/2 spinel, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1910560

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.