English

Fast broadband cluster spin-glass dynamics in PbFe$_{1/2}$Nb$_{1/2}$O$_{3}$

Materials Science 2022-12-06 v1 Strongly Correlated Electrons

Abstract

PbFe1/2_{1/2}Nb1/2_{1/2}O3_{3} (PFN) is a relaxor ferroelectric (Tc_{c} \sim 400 K) consisting of disordered magnetic Fe3+^{3+} (S=52{5\over2}, L\approx0) ions resulting in a low temperature ``cluster glass" phase (W. Kleemann et al.\textit{et al.} Phys. Rev. Lett. 105{\bf{105}}, 257202 (2010)). We apply neutron scattering to investigate the dynamic magnetism of this phase in a large single crystal which displays a low temperature spin glass transition (Tg_{g} \sim 15 K), but no observable spatially long-range antiferromagnetic order. The static response in the cluster glass phase (sampled on the timescale set by our resolution) is found to be characterized by an average magnetic spin direction that lacks any preferred direction. The dynamics that drive this phase are defined by a magnetic correlation length that gradually increases with decreasing temperature. However, below \sim 50 K the spatial correlations gradually becoming more short range indicative of increasing disorder on cooling, thereby unravelling magnetism, until the low temperature glass phase sets in at Tg_{g} \sim 15 K. Neutron spectroscopy is used to characterize the spin fluctuations in the cluster glass phase and are found to be defined by a broadband of frequencies on the scale of \sim THz, termed here ``fast" fluctuations. The frequency bandwidth driving the magnetic fluctuations mimics the correlation length and decreases until \sim 50 K, and then increases again until the glass transition. Through investigating the low-energy acoustic phonons we find evidence of multiple distinct structural regions which form the basis of the clusters, generating a significant amount of local disorder. We suggest that random molecular fields originating from conflicting interactions between clusters is important for the destruction of magnetic order and the eventual formation of the cluster glass in PFN.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2210.15706,
  title  = {Fast broadband cluster spin-glass dynamics in PbFe$_{1/2}$Nb$_{1/2}$O$_{3}$},
  author = {C. Stock and B. Roessli and P. M. Gehring and J. A. Rodriguez-Rivera and N. Giles-Donovan and S. Cochran and G. Xu and P. Manuel and M. J. Gutmann and W. D. Ratcliff and T. Fennell and Y. Su and X. Li and H. Luo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.15706},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

17 pages, 16 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. B