Emerging Diluted Ferromagnetism in High-T-c Superconductors Driven by Point Defect Clusters

Defects in ceramic materials are generally seen as detrimental to their functionality and applicability. Yet, in some complex oxides, defects present an opportunity to enhance some of their properties or even lead to the discovery of exciting physics, particularly in the presence of strong correlations. A paradigmatic case is the high-temperature superconductor YBa2Cu3O7-delta(Y123), in which nanoscale defects play an important role as they can immobilize quantized magnetic flux vortices. Here previously unforeseen point defects buried in Y123 thin films that lead to the formation of ferromagnetic clusters embedded within the superconductor are unveiled. Aberration-corrected scanning transmission microscopy has been used for exploring, on a single unit-cell level, the structure and chemistry resulting from these complex point defects, along with density functional theory calculations, for providing new insights about their nature including an unexpected defect-driven ferromagnetism, and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism for bearing evidence of Cu magnetic moments that align ferromagnetically even below the superconducting critical temperature to form a dilute system of magnetic clusters associated with the point defects

Interesting magnetic properties of Fe1−x_{1-x}Cox_xSi alloys

Solid solution between nonmagnetic narrow gap semiconductor FeSi and diamagnetic semi-metal CoSi gives rise to interesting metallic alloys with long-range helical magnetic ordering, for a wide range of intermediate concentration. We report various interesting magnetic properties of these alloys, including low temperature re-entrant spin-glass like behaviour and a novel inverted magnetic hysteresis loop. Role of Dzyaloshinski-Moriya interaction in the magnetic response of these non-centrosymmetric alloys is discussed.Comment: 11 pages and 3 figure

k=0Magnetic Structure and Absence of Ferroelectricity in SmFeO3

SmFeO3 has attracted considerable attention very recently due to the reported multiferroic properties above room-temperature. We have performed powder and single crystal neutron diffraction as well as complementary polarization dependent soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements on floating-zone grown SmFeO3 single crystals in order to determine its magnetic structure. We found a k=0 G-type collinear antiferromagnetic structure that is not compatible with inverse Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction driven ferroelectricity. While the structural data reveals a clear sign for magneto-elastic coupling at the N\'eel-temperature of ~675 K, the dielectric measurements remain silent as far as ferroelectricity is concerned

Native SrTiO3 (001) surface layer from resonant Ti L2,3 reflectance spectroscopy\ud

We quantitatively model resonant Ti L2,3 reflectivity Rs,p(q,hν) from several SrTiO3 (001) single crystals having different initial surface preparations and stored in ambient conditions before and between measurements. All samples exhibit unexpected 300 K Rs(hν)−Rp(hν) anisotropy corresponding to weak linear dichroism and tetragonal distortion of the TiO6 octahedra indicating a surface layer with properties different from cubic SrTiO3. Oscillations in Rs(q) confirm a ubiquitous surface layer 2–3 nm thick that evolves over a range of time scales. Resonant optical constant spectra derived from Rs,p(hν) assuming a uniform sample are refined using a single surface layer to fit measured Rs(q). Differences in surface layer and bulk optical properties indicate that the surface is significantly depleted in Sr and enriched in Ti and O. While consistent with the tendency of SrTiO3 surfaces toward nonstoichiometry, this layer does not conform simply to existing models for the near surface region and apparently forms via room-temperature surface reactions with the ambient. This quantitative spectral modeling approach is generally applicable and has potential to study near-surface properties of a variety of systems with unique chemical and electronic sensitivitie

Understanding the magnetic anisotropy in Fe-Si amorphous alloys

The origin of the magnetic anisotropy in a very disordered Fe-Si alloy has been investigated. The alloy containing 40 percent at. Si was prepared in the form of a thin film in a DC magnetron sputtering chamber. Structural disorder was obtained from Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure spectroscopy. The uniformity and lack of inhomogeneities at a microscopic level was checked by measuring their transverse magnetic susceptibility and hysteresis loops. The orbital component of the magnetic moment was measured by X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism spectroscopy. The orbital moment was extraordinary high, 0.4mB. Such a high value contrasted with the relatively small uniaxial anisotropy energy of the thin film (2kJ/m3). This suggests that the cause of the magnetic anisotropy in this alloy was a small degree of correlation in the orientation of the local orbital moments along a preferential direction

Understanding the magnetic anisotropy in Fe-Si amorphous alloys

The origin of the magnetic anisotropy in a very disordered Fe-Si alloy has been investigated. The alloy containing 40 percent at. Si was prepared in the form of a thin film in a DC magnetron sputtering chamber. Structural disorder was obtained from Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure spectroscopy. The uniformity and lack of inhomogeneities at a microscopic level was checked by measuring their transverse magnetic susceptibility and hysteresis loops. The orbital component of the magnetic moment was measured by X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism spectroscopy. The orbital moment was extraordinary high, 0.4mB. Such a high value contrasted with the relatively small uniaxial anisotropy energy of the thin film (2kJ/m3). This suggests that the cause of the magnetic anisotropy in this alloy was a small degree of correlation in the orientation of the local orbital moments along a preferential direction