English

Absence of moment fragmentation in the mixed $B$-site pyrochlore Nd$_{2}$GaSbO$_{7}$

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2021-06-11 v1

Abstract

Nd-based pyrochlore oxides of the form Nd2B2_{2}B_{2}O7_{7} have garnered a significant amount of interest owing to the moment fragmentation physics observed in Nd2_{2}Zr2_{2}O7_{7} and speculated in Nd2_{2}Hf2_{2}O7_{7}. Notably this phenomenon is not ubiquitous in this family, as it is absent in Nd2_{2}Sn2_{2}O7_{7}, which features a smaller ionic radius on the BB-site. Here, we explore the necessary conditions for moment fragmentation in the Nd pyrochlore family through a detailed study of the mixed BB-site pyrochlore Nd2_{2}GaSbO7_{7}. The BB-site of this system is characterized by significant disorder and an extremely small average ionic radius. Similarly to Nd2_{2}Sn2_{2}O7_{7}, we find no evidence for moment fragmentation through our bulk characterization and neutron scattering experiments, indicating that chemical pressure (and not necessarily the BB-site disorder) plays a key role in the presence or absence of this phenomenon in this material family. Surprisingly, the presence of significant BB-site disorder in Nd2_{2}GaSbO7_{7} does not generate a spin glass ground state and instead the same all-in-all-out magnetic order identified in other Nd pyrochlores is found here.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2104.00791,
  title  = {Absence of moment fragmentation in the mixed $B$-site pyrochlore Nd$_{2}$GaSbO$_{7}$},
  author = {S. J. Gomez and P. M. Sarte and M. Zelensky and A. M. Hallas and B. A. Gonzalez and K. H. Hong and E. J. Pace and S. Calder and M. B. Stone and Y. Su and E. Feng and M. D. Le and C. Stock and J. P. Attfield and S. D. Wilson and C. R. Wiebe and A. A. Aczel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.00791},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

11 pages, 8 figures