Muons and magnets

Abstract:

The magnetic properties attributed to the hydroxide layer of Li1-xFex(OH)Fe1-ySe have been elucidated by the study of superconducting and nonsuperconducting members of this family of compounds. Both ac magnetometry and muon spin relaxation measurements of nonsuperconductors find a magnetic state existing below ≈10 K which exhibits slow relaxation of magnetization. This magnetic state is accompanied by a low-temperature heat capacity anomaly present in both superconducting and nonsuperconducting variants suggesting that the magnetism persists into the superconducting state. The estimated value of magnetic moment present within the hydroxide layer supports a picture of a glassy magnetic state, probably comprising clusters of iron ions of varying cluster sizes distributed within the lithium hydroxide layer.

Abstract:

Chiral magnets are promising materials for the realisation of high-density and low-power spintronic memory devices. For these future applications, a key requirement is the synthesis of appropriate materials in the form of thin films ordering well above room temperature. Driven by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, the cubic compound FeGe exhibits helimagnetism with a relatively high transition temperature of 278K in bulk crystals. We demonstrate that this temperature can be enhanced significantly in thin films. Using x-ray spectroscopic and ferromagnetic resonance techniques, we provide unambiguous experimental evidence for long-wavelength helimagnetic order at room temperature and magnetic properties similar to the bulk material. We obtain αintr = 0:0036 ± 0:0003 at 310K for the intrinsic damping parameter. We probe the dynamics of the system by means of muon-spin rotation, indicating that the ground state is reached via a freezing out of slow dynamics. Our work paves the way towards the fabrication of thin films of chiral magnets that host certain spin whirls, so-called skyrmions, at room temperature and potentially offer integrability into modern electronics.

Abstract:

We demonstrate that quantum-critical spin dynamics can be probed in high magnetic fields using muon-spin relaxation (μ+SR). Our model system is the strong-leg spin ladder bis(2,3-dimethylpyridinium) tetrabromocuprate (DIMPY). In the gapless Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid phase we observe finite-temperature scaling of the μ+SR 1/T1 relaxation rate which allows us to determine the Luttinger parameter K. We discuss the benefits and limitations of local probes compared with inelastic neutron scattering.