Reentrant spin glass state induced by structural phase transition in La0.4Ce0.6Co2P2

Judith K. Clark, Xiaoyan Tan, V. Ovidiu Garlea, Alexandra A. Arico, Arthur P. Ramirez, Vincent Yannello, Corey M. Thompson, Kirill Kovnir, and Michael Shatruk
Phys. Rev. Materials 4, 074412 – Published 22 July 2020

Abstract

La0.4Ce0.6Co2P2 represents a borderline case in the range of solid solutions formed in the pseudobinary system LaCo2P2CeCo2P2. The material undergoes ferromagnetic ordering at ∼225 K followed by a structural collapse at ∼190 K, which leads to a strong suppression of magnetization. The structural phase transition manifests itself in a gradual decrease in the parameter c and a relatively smaller increase of the parameter a of the tetragonal lattice. Interestingly, a combination of magnetic measurements and nonpolarized and polarized neutron scattering experiments suggests that the structural collapse does not lead to an antiferromagnetically ordered state, observed in samples with the higher Ce content. On the contrary, La0.4Ce0.6Co2P2 appears to enter a disordered, spin glass state, with gradual dissipation of the ferromagnetic ordering taking place simultaneously with the structural collapse, as evidenced by temperature-dependent measurements of the depolarization factor for a polarized neutron beam passing through the sample. The observed behavior is analogous to that reported for so-called reentrant spin glasses. In the present case, however, the appearance of the reentrant spin glass regime is caused not by tuning the chemical composition but by the structural phase transition. Electronic structure calculations confirm that the loss of magnetic ordering is caused by the subtle change to the density of states at the Fermi level due to the variation of the crystal structure of the material.

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  • Received 1 May 2020
  • Accepted 19 June 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.4.074412

©2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Judith K. Clark1, Xiaoyan Tan1,*, V. Ovidiu Garlea2, Alexandra A. Arico1, Arthur P. Ramirez3, Vincent Yannello1, Corey M. Thompson1,†, Kirill Kovnir4,5, and Michael Shatruk1,‡

  • 1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA
  • 2Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
  • 3Department of Physics, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95060, USA
  • 4Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
  • 5US DOE Ames Laboratory, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA

  • *Present address: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia 22030, USA.
  • Present address: Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, 560 Oval Drive, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA.
  • Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed: mshatruk@fsu.edu

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Issue

Vol. 4, Iss. 7 — July 2020

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