TY - JOUR
T1 - Partitioning the Two-Leg Spin Ladder in Ba 2 Cu 1 – x Zn x TeO 6: From Magnetic Order through Spin-Freezing to Paramagnetism
AU - Pughe, Charlotte
AU - Mustonen, Otto H. J.
AU - Gibbs, Alexandra S.
AU - Lee, Stephen
AU - Stewart, Rhea
AU - Gade, Ben
AU - Wang, Chennan
AU - Luetkens, Hubertus
AU - Foster, Anna
AU - Coomer, Fiona C.
AU - Takagi, Hidenori
AU - Cussen, Edmund J.
PY - 2023/4/11
Y1 - 2023/4/11
N2 - Ba2CuTeO6 has attracted significant attention as it contains a two-leg spin ladder of Cu2+ cations that lies in close proximity to a quantum critical point. Recently, Ba2CuTeO6 has been shown to accommodate chemical substitutions, which can significantly tune its magnetic behavior. Here, we investigate the effects of substitution for non-magnetic Zn2+ impurities at the Cu2+ site, partitioning the spin ladders. Results from bulk thermodynamic and local muon magnetic characterization on the Ba2Cu1 – x Zn x TeO6 solid solution (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.6) indicate that Zn2+ partitions the Cu2+ spin ladders into clusters and can be considered using the percolation theory. As the average cluster size decreases with increasing Zn2+ substitution, there is an evolving transition from long-range order to spin-freezing as the critical cluster size is reached between x = 0.1 to x = 0.2, beyond which the behavior became paramagnetic. This demonstrates well-controlled tuning of the magnetic disorder, which is highly topical across a range of low-dimensional Cu2+-based materials. However, in many of these cases, the chemical disorder is also relatively strong in contrast to Ba2CuTeO6 and its derivatives. Therefore, Ba2Cu1 – x Zn x TeO6 provides an ideal model system for isolating the effect of defects and segmentation in low-dimensional quantum magnets.
AB - Ba2CuTeO6 has attracted significant attention as it contains a two-leg spin ladder of Cu2+ cations that lies in close proximity to a quantum critical point. Recently, Ba2CuTeO6 has been shown to accommodate chemical substitutions, which can significantly tune its magnetic behavior. Here, we investigate the effects of substitution for non-magnetic Zn2+ impurities at the Cu2+ site, partitioning the spin ladders. Results from bulk thermodynamic and local muon magnetic characterization on the Ba2Cu1 – x Zn x TeO6 solid solution (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.6) indicate that Zn2+ partitions the Cu2+ spin ladders into clusters and can be considered using the percolation theory. As the average cluster size decreases with increasing Zn2+ substitution, there is an evolving transition from long-range order to spin-freezing as the critical cluster size is reached between x = 0.1 to x = 0.2, beyond which the behavior became paramagnetic. This demonstrates well-controlled tuning of the magnetic disorder, which is highly topical across a range of low-dimensional Cu2+-based materials. However, in many of these cases, the chemical disorder is also relatively strong in contrast to Ba2CuTeO6 and its derivatives. Therefore, Ba2Cu1 – x Zn x TeO6 provides an ideal model system for isolating the effect of defects and segmentation in low-dimensional quantum magnets.
KW - Article
U2 - 10.1021/acs.chemmater.2c02939
DO - 10.1021/acs.chemmater.2c02939
M3 - Article
SN - 0897-4756
VL - 35
SP - 2752
EP - 2761
JO - Chemistry of Materials
JF - Chemistry of Materials
IS - 7
ER -