Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: Spin glass behavior in frustrated quantum spin system CuAl 2 O 4 with a possible orbital liquid state

Journal Article · · Journal of Physics. Condensed Matter
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [2];  [2];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11]
  1. Seoul National Univ. (Korea, Republic of). Center for Stronly Correlated Materials Research; Indian Inst. of Technology (IIT), Madras (India). Dept. of Physics; Sungkyunkwan Univ., Suwon (Republic of Korea). Dept. of Physics
  2. Seoul National Univ. (Korea, Republic of). Center for Stronly Correlated Materials Research; Sungkyunkwan Univ., Suwon (Republic of Korea). Dept. of Physics
  3. Inst. for Basic Science, Seoul (Korea, Republic of). Center for Correlated Electron Systems; Seoul National Univ. (Korea, Republic of). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  4. Korea Atomic Energy Research Inst., Daejeon (Korea, Republic of). Neturon Science Division; Rutgers Univ., Piscataway, NJ (United States). Rutgers Center for Emergent Materials and Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  5. ISIS Facility, Didcot (United Kingdom). Rutherford Appleton Lab.; Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Chemical and Engineering Materials
  6. Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), Tokai (Japan). Quantum Beam Science Center
  7. Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), Tokai (Japan). Quantum Beam Science Center; Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Quantum Condensed Matter Division
  8. Rutgers Univ., Piscataway, NJ (United States). Rutgers Center for Emergent Materials and Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  9. Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Ekaterinburg (Russian Federation). MN Miheev Inst. of Metal Physics of Ural Branch
  10. Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Ekaterinburg (Russian Federation). MN Miheev Inst. of Metal Physics of Ural Branch; Ural Federal Univ., Ekaterinburg (Russia)
  11. Seoul National Univ. (Korea, Republic of). Center for Stronly Correlated Materials Research; Sungkyunkwan Univ., Suwon (Republic of Korea). Dept. of Physics; Inst. for Basic Science, Seoul (Korea, Republic of). Center for Correlated Electron Systems; Seoul National Univ. (Korea, Republic of). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
+ Show Author Affiliations

CuAl2O4 is a normal spinel oxide having quantum spin, S = 1/2 for Cu2+. It is a rather unique feature that the Cu2+ ions of CuAl2O4 sit at a tetrahedral position, not like the usual octahedral position for many oxides. At low temperatures, it exhibits all the thermodynamic evidence of a quantum spin glass. For example, the polycrystalline CuAl2O4 shows a cusp centered at ~2 K in the low-field dc magnetization data and a clear frequency dependence in the ac magnetic susceptibility while it displays logarithmic relaxation behavior in a time dependence of the magnetization. At the same time, there is a peak at ~2.3 K in the heat capacity, which shifts towards a higher temperature with magnetic fields. Conversely, there is no evidence of new superlattice peaks in the high-resolution neutron powder diffraction data when cooled from 40 to 0.4 K. This implies that there is no long-ranged magnetic order down to 0.4 K, thus confirming a spin glass-like ground state for CuAl2O4. Interestingly, there is no sign of structural distortion either although Cu2+ is a Jahn–Teller active ion. Therefore, we claim that an orbital liquid state is the most likely ground state in CuAl2O4. Of further interest, it also exhibits a large frustration parameter, f = |θ CW/T m| ~ 67, one of the largest values reported for spinel oxides. These observations suggest that CuAl2O4 should be a rare example of a frustrated quantum spin glass with a good candidate for an orbital liquid state.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; FG02-07ER46382
OSTI ID:
1346686
Journal Information:
Journal of Physics. Condensed Matter, Journal Name: Journal of Physics. Condensed Matter Journal Issue: 13 Vol. 29; ISSN 0953-8984
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (35)

Spin-glass state in CuGa 2 O 4 journal April 2001
Kinetically inhibited order in a diamond-lattice antiferromagnet journal September 2011
Spin glasses: Experimental facts, theoretical concepts, and open questions journal October 1986
Strong frustration and dilution-enhanced order in a quasi-2D spin glass journal April 1990
Ferromagnet or spin glass? Magnetic ordering in Au-Fe alloys journal May 1974
Orbital physics in sulfur spinels: ordered, liquid and glassy ground states journal January 2004
Anomalous High-Pressure Jahn-Teller Behavior in CuWO 4 journal April 2012
Absence of Jahn−Teller transition in the hexagonal Ba 3 CuSb 2 O 9 single crystal journal July 2015
Spin liquid in a single crystal of the frustrated diamond lattice antiferromagnet CoAl 2 O 4 journal September 2011
Magnetic properties of normal spinels with only a-a interactions journal January 1964
Structure Solution of the High-Pressure Phase of CuWO 4 and Evolution of the Jahn–Teller Distortion journal September 2011
Density-functional theory and strong interactions: Orbital ordering in Mott-Hubbard insulators journal August 1995
Spin-glass state of ( N d , L a ) 0.5 Sr 1.5 MnO 4 journal December 2000
Order-by-disorder and spiral spin-liquid in frustrated diamond-lattice antiferromagnets journal May 2007
Zero-point entropy in ‘spin ice’ journal May 1999
Structural study of copper-nickel aluminate (CuxNi1−xAl2O4) spinels journal November 1985
Crystal-field splitting for low symmetry systems in ab initio calculations journal June 2005
Spin and Orbital Frustration in MnSc 2 S 4 and FeSc 2 S 4 journal March 2004
Synthesis and magnetic properties of nano-dimensional Fe 1−x Cu x Al 2 O 4 (0.3 ≤ x ≤ 0.8) journal January 2015
Emergent excitations in a geometrically frustrated magnet journal August 2002
Spin Ice State in Frustrated Magnetic Pyrochlore Materials journal November 2001
Cation distribution and bond lengths in CoAl2O4 spinel journal October 2003
Zero-point entropy of the spinel spin glasses CuGa 2 O 4 and CuAl 2 O 4 journal January 2009
Explicit, First-Principles Tight-Binding Theory journal December 1984
Geometric frustration in the cubic spinels M Al 2 O 4 ( M = Co , Fe, and Mn) journal November 2005
Nanostructured CuAl2O4: Co-precipitation synthesis, optical and photocatalytic properties journal September 2016
Ordering and Antiferromagnetism in Ferrites journal May 1956
Melting of antiferromagnetic ordering in spinel oxide CoAl 2 O 4 journal March 2007
Pressure-Induced Quenching of the Jahn-Teller Distortion and Insulator-to-Metal Transition in LaMnO 3 journal August 2001
Recent advances in magnetic structure determination by neutron powder diffraction journal October 1993
Ground state and low-energy magnetic dynamics in the frustrated magnet CoAl 2 O 4 as revealed by local spin probes journal April 2015
Pressure-dependent magnetic properties of geometrically frustrated ZnCr 2 O 4 journal November 2005
Spin-Orbital Short-Range Order on a Honeycomb-Based Lattice journal May 2012
Electrical and magnetic properties of R2Mo2O7 (R=Nd, Sm, Gd and Dy) journal April 2003
Approaching the true ground state of frustrated A -site spinels: A combined magnetization and polarized neutron scattering study journal May 2014

Cited By (2)

Theoretical evidence of spin-orbital-entangled J eff = 1 2 state in the 3 d transition metal oxide CuAl 2 O 4 journal October 2019
Field-cooling induced giant vertical magnetization shift in frustrated low dimensional spin-chain Sr 3 NiIrO 6 system journal August 2019

Similar Records

Related Subjects

75
quantum spin system
frustration
spin glass
orbital liquid state