Low temperature mixed spin state of Co3+ in LaCoO3 evidenced from Jahn-Teller lattice distortions

One- and multi-phonon excitations of the single crystalline LaCoO3 were studied using Raman spectroscopy in the temperature region of 5 K - 300 K. First-order Raman spectra show a larger number of phonon modes than allowed for the rhombohedral structure. Additional phonon modes are interpreted in terms of activated modes due to lattice distortions, arising from the Jahn-Teller (JT) activity of the intermediate-spin (IS) state of Co3+ ions. In particular, the 608-cm-1 stretching-type mode shows anomalous behavior in peak energy and scattering intensity as a function of temperature. The anomalous temperature dependence of the second-order phonon excitations spectra is in accordance with the Franck-Condon mechanism that is characteristic for a JT orbital order.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, to be published in J. Low. Temp. Physic

X-ray Diffraction Study of Superstructure in GdBaCo2O5.5

A single crystal of GdBaCo2O5.47(2) has been studied by means of X-ray diffraction. Appearance of superstructure reflections at T = 341.5(7) K gives an evidence of continuous transition to the phase with unit cell doubled along the shortest edge a1. Critical exponent for the order parameter is found to be beta=0.33(1). The superstructure reflections are about 2-4 orders of magnitude weaker than the basic ones. Their systematic extinction indicates the crystal symmetry change from Pmmm to Pmma. The integrated intensities allow to calculate displacements of atoms from the positions in the high-temperature phase. The cobalt-ligand distances in the ordered phase are discussed in terms of the spin-state/orbital ordering of Co3+ ions.Comment: 4 page

Probing the role of Nd3+ ions in the weak multiferroic character of NdMn2O5 by optical spectroscopies

Raman and infrared spectroscopies are used as local probes to study the dynamics of the Nd-O bonds in the weakly multiferroic NdMn2O5 system. The temperature dependence of selected Raman excitations reveals the splitting of the Nd-O bonds in NdMn2O5. The Nd3+ ion crystal field (CF) excitations in NdMn2O5 single crystals are studied by infrared transmission as a function of temperature, in the 1800-8000 cm-1 range, and under an applied magnetic field up to 11 T. The frequencies of all 4Ij crystal-field levels of Nd3+ are determined. We find that the degeneracy of the ground-state Kramers doublet is lifted ({\Delta}0 ~7.5 cm-1) due to the Nd3+-Mn3+ interaction in the ferroelectric phase, below TC ~ 28 K. The Nd3+ magnetic moment mNd(T) and its contribution to the magnetic susceptibility and the specific heat are evaluated from {\Delta}0(T) indicating that the Nd3+ ions are involved in the magnetic and the ferroelectric ordering observed below ~ 28 K. The Zeeman splitting of the excited crystal field levels of the Nd3+ ions at low temperature is also analyzed.Comment: This paper is accepted for publication as a Regular Article in Physical Review

Influence of Co3+^{3+} spin-state on optical properties of LaCoO3_3 and HoCoO3_3

Optical properties of the isoelectronic compounds LaCoO$_3$ and HoCoO$_3$ has been experimentally and theoretically investigated. We've measured the real $\epsilon_1(\omega)$ and imaginary $\epsilon_2(\omega)$ parts of the dielectric function, reflectance $R(\omega)$ and optical conductivity at room temperature. The shift of the most pronounced spectral features to the high energy region on 0.3 eV associated with larger distortions due to the smaller rare earth ionic radii in HoCoO$_3$ in comparison with LaCoO$_3$ was observed. Also there was found an enhancement of absorption intensity in the range 1.3-2.3 eV in all kinds of spectra in HoCoO$_3$, which can be attributed basing on the results of LDA+U calculations to the different spin-states of Co$^{3+}$ ion in these compounds. The shift of the onset of the absorption from less than 0.1 eV in LaCoO$_3$ to 0.7 eV in HoCoO$_3$ and an absorption intensity enhancement in a narrow spectral range 1.2-2.6 eV in HoCoO$_3$ are clearly seen from the calculated convolution of partial densities of states obtained in the LDA+U approach. Such changes are assumed to be induced by the different Co$^{3+}$ spin-state in these compounds at room temperature.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Magnetization and Magnetotransport of LnBaCo2O5.5 (Ln=Gd, Eu) Single Crystals

The magnetization, resistivity and magnetoresistance (MR) of single crystals of GdBaCo2O5.5 and EuBaCo2O5.5 are measured over a wide range of dc magnetic fields (up to 30 T) and temperature. In LnBaCo2O5.5 (Ln=Gd, Eu), the Co-ions are trivalent and can exist in three spin states, namely, the S=0 low spin state (LS), the S= 1 intermediate spin state (IS) and the S=2 high spin state (HS). We confirm that GdBaCo2O5.5 and EuBaCo2O5.5 have a metal-insulator transition accompanied by a spin-state transition at TMI >> 365 and 335 K, respectively. The data suggest an equal ratio of LS (S=0) and IS (S=1) Co3+ ions below TMI, with no indication of additional spin state transitions. The low field magnetization shows a transition to a highly anisotropic ferromagnetic phase at 270 K, followed by another magnetic transition to an antiferromagnetic phase at a slightly lower temperature. The magnetization data are suggestive of weak correlations between the Gd-spins but no clear signature of ordering is seen for T > 2 K. Significant anisotropy between the a-b plane and c axis was observed in magnetic and magnetotransport properties for both compounds. For GdBaCo2O5.5, the resistivity and MR data imply a strong correlation between the spin-order and charge carriers. For EuBaCo2O5.5, the magnetic phase diagram is very similar to its Gd counterpart, but the low-T MR with current flow in the ab plane is positive rather than negative as for Gd. The magnitude and the hysteresis of the MR for EuBaCo2O5.5 decrease with increasing temperature, and at higher T the MR changes sign and becomes negative. The difference in the behavior of both compounds may arise from a small valence admixture in the nonmagnetic Eu ions, i.e. a valence slightly less than 3+.Comment: Accepted for publication in PR

On the superfluidity of classical liquid in nanotubes

In 2001, the author proposed the ultra second quantization method. The ultra second quantization of the Schr\"odinger equation, as well as its ordinary second quantization, is a representation of the N-particle Schr\"odinger equation, and this means that basically the ultra second quantization of the equation is the same as the original N-particle equation: they coincide in 3N-dimensional space. We consider a short action pairwise potential V(x_i -x_j). This means that as the number of particles tends to infinity, $N\to\infty$, interaction is possible for only a finite number of particles. Therefore, the potential depends on N in the following way: $V_N=V((x_i-x_j)N^{1/3})$. If V(y) is finite with support $\Omega_V$, then as $N\to\infty$ the support engulfs a finite number of particles, and this number does not depend on N. As a result, it turns out that the superfluidity occurs for velocities less than $\min(\lambda_{\text{crit}}, \frac{h}{2mR})$, where $\lambda_{\text{crit}}$ is the critical Landau velocity and R is the radius of the nanotube.Comment: Latex, 20p. The text is presented for the International Workshop "Idempotent and tropical mathematics and problems of mathematical physics", Independent University of Moscow, Moscow, August 25--30, 2007 and to be published in the Russian Journal of Mathematical Physics, 2007, vol. 15, #