2024/01/03 by Yuanpeng Zhang, Zhiling Dun, Zhang, Yuanpeng +17
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Multiferroics and related materials #Nuclear materials and radiation effects #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2401.01807
openalex publication_date 2024/01/03 · openalex created_date 2024/01/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
While it is commonly accepted that the disorder induced by magnetic ion doping in quantum magnets usually generates a rugged free-energy landscape resulting in slow or glassy spin dynamics, the disorder/distortion effects associated with non-magnetic ion sites doping are still illusive. Here, using AC susceptibility measurements, we show that the mixture of Sn/Ti on the non-magnetic ion sites of pyrochlore Yb2(Ti1-xSnx)2O7 induces an antiferromagnetic ground state despite both parent compounds, Yb2Ti2O7, and Yb2Sn2O7, order ferromagnetically. Local structure studies through neutron total scattering reveals the local distortion in the non-magnetic ion sites and its strong correlation with the magnetic phase switching. Our study, for the first time, demonstrates the local distortion as induced by the non-magnetic ion site mixture could be a new path to achieve magnetic phase switching, which has been traditionally obtained by external stimuli such as temperature, magnetic field, pressure, strain, light, etc.