4,354 research outputs found
Switchable Hardening of a Ferromagnet at Fixed Temperature
The intended use of a magnetic material, from information storage to power
conversion, depends crucially on its domain structure, traditionally crafted
during materials synthesis. By contrast, we show that an external magnetic
field applied transverse to the preferred magnetization of a model disordered
uniaxial ferromagnet is an isothermal regulator of domain pinning. At elevated
temperatures, near the transition into the paramagnet, modest transverse fields
increase the pinning, stabilize the domain structure, and harden the magnet,
until a point where the field induces quantum tunneling of the domain walls and
softens the magnet. At low temperatures, tunneling completely dominates the
domain dynamics and provides an interpretation of the quantum phase transition
in highly disordered magnets as a localization/delocalization transition for
domain walls. While the energy scales of the rare earth ferromagnet studied
here restrict the effects to cryogenic temperatures, the principles discovered
are general and should be applicable to existing classes of highly anisotropic
ferromagnets with ordering at room temperature or above.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Approaching the quantum critical point in a highly-correlated all-in-all-out antiferromagnet
Continuous quantum phase transition involving all-in–all-out (AIAO) antiferromagnetic order in strongly spin-orbit-coupled 5d compounds could give rise to various exotic electronic phases and strongly-coupled quantum critical phenomena. Here we experimentally trace the AIAO spin order in Sm₂Ir₂O₇ using direct resonant x-ray magnetic diffraction techniques under high pressure. The magnetic order is suppressed at a critical pressure P_c=6.30GPa, while the lattice symmetry remains in the cubic Fd−3m space group across the quantum critical point. Comparing pressure tuning and the chemical series R₂Ir₂O₇ reveals that the approach to the AIAO quantum phase transition is characterized by contrasting evolutions of the pyrochlore lattice constant a and the trigonal distortion surrounding individual Ir moments, which affects the 5d bandwidth and the Ising anisotropy, respectively. We posit that the opposite effects of pressure and chemical tuning lead to spin fluctuations with different Ising and Heisenberg character in the quantum critical region. Finally, the observed low pressure scale of the AIAO quantum phase transition in Sm₂Ir₂O₇ identifies a circumscribed region of P-T space for investigating the putative magnetic Weyl semimetal state
Probing many-body localization in a disordered quantum magnet
Quantum states cohere and interfere. Quantum systems composed of many atoms
arranged imperfectly rarely display these properties. Here we demonstrate an
exception in a disordered quantum magnet that divides itself into nearly
isolated subsystems. We probe these coherent clusters of spins by driving the
system beyond its linear response regime at a single frequency and measuring
the resulting "hole" in the overall linear spectral response. The Fano shape of
the hole encodes the incoherent lifetime as well as coherent mixing of the
localized excitations. For the disordered Ising magnet,
, the quality factor for spectral holes
can be as high as 100,000. We tune the dynamics of the quantum degrees of
freedom by sweeping the Fano mixing parameter through zero via the
amplitude of the ac pump as well as a static external transverse field. The
zero-crossing of is associated with a dissipationless response at the drive
frequency, implying that the off-diagonal matrix element for the two-level
system also undergoes a zero-crossing. The identification of localized
two-level systems in a dense and disordered dipolar-coupled spin system
represents a solid state implementation of many-body localization, pushing the
search forward for qubits emerging from strongly-interacting, disordered,
many-body systems.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
Barkhausen noise in the Random Field Ising Magnet NdFeB
With sintered needles aligned and a magnetic field applied transverse to its
easy axis, the rare-earth ferromagnet NdFeB becomes a
room-temperature realization of the Random Field Ising Model. The transverse
field tunes the pinning potential of the magnetic domains in a continuous
fashion. We study the magnetic domain reversal and avalanche dynamics between
liquid helium and room temperatures at a series of transverse fields using a
Barkhausen noise technique. The avalanche size and energy distributions follow
power-law behavior with a cutoff dependent on the pinning strength dialed in by
the transverse field, consistent with theoretical predictions for Barkhausen
avalanches in disordered materials. A scaling analysis reveals two regimes of
behavior: one at low temperature and high transverse field, where the dynamics
are governed by the randomness, and the second at high temperature and low
transverse field where thermal fluctuations dominate the dynamics.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures. Under review at Phys. Rev.
Magnetism, structure, and charge correlation at a pressure-induced Mott-Hubbard insulator-metal transition
We use synchrotron x-ray diffraction and electrical transport under pressure
to probe both the magnetism and the structure of single crystal NiS2 across its
Mott-Hubbard transition. In the insulator, the low-temperature
antiferromagnetic order results from superexchange among correlated electrons
and couples to a (1/2, 1/2, 1/2) superlattice distortion. Applying pressure
suppresses the insulating state, but enhances the magnetism as the
superexchange increases with decreasing lattice constant. By comparing our
results under pressure to previous studies of doped crystals we show that this
dependence of the magnetism on the lattice constant is consistent for both band
broadening and band filling. In the high pressure metallic phase the lattice
symmetry is reduced from cubic to monoclinic, pointing to the primary influence
of charge correlations at the transition. There exists a wide regime of phase
separation that may be a general characteristic of correlated quantum matter.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Interplay of disorder and geometrical frustration in doped Gadolinium Gallium Garnet
The geometrically-frustrated, triangular antiferromagnet GGG exhibits a rich
mix of short-range order and isolated quantum states. We investigate the
effects of up to 1% Neodymium substitution for Gallium on the ac magnetic
response at temperatures below 1 K in both the linear and nonlinear regimes.
Substitutional disorder actually drives the system towards a more perfectly
frustrated state, apparently compensating for the effect of imperfect
Gadolinium/Gallium stoichiometry, while at the same time more closely
demarcating the boundaries of isolated, coherent clusters composed of hundreds
of spins. Optical measurements of the local Nd environment substantiate the
picture of an increased frustration index with doping.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Critical behavior of the Hall conductivity at the metal-insulator transition
We measure the low-temperature longitudinal and Hall conductivities in a series of Ge:Sb samples at the approach to the metal-insulator transition. Both conductivities critically vanish with the same exponent of 1, in contradiction to the ratio of 2 predicted by the scaling theory of localization
Quantum and Classical Glass Transitions in
When performed in the proper low field, low frequency limits, measurements of
the dynamics and the nonlinear susceptibility in the model Ising magnet in
transverse field, , prove the existence
of a spin glass transition for = 0.167 and 0.198. The classical behavior
tracks for the two concentrations, but the behavior in the quantum regime at
large transverse fields differs because of the competing effects of quantum
entanglement and random fields.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. Updated figure 3 with corrected calibration
information for thermometr
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