2017/08/06 by Nicolás Bas Martín, Martin, N., P. Bonville +17 · 4 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #Multiferroics and related materials #Nuclear materials and radiation effects #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1708.01845
openalex publication_date 2017/08/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report on diffuse neutron scattering experiments providing evidence for the presence of random strains in the quantum spin ice candidate Pr2Zr2O7. Since Pr is a non-Kramers ion, the strain deeply modifies the picture of Ising magnetic moments governing the low temperature properties of this material. It is shown that the derived strain distribution accounts for the temperature dependence of the specific heat and of the spin excitation spectra. Taking advantage of mean field and spin dynamics simulations, we argue that the randomness in Pr2Zr2O7, promotes a new state of matter, which is disordered, yet characterized by short range antiferroquadrupolar correlations, and from which emerge spin-ice like excitations. This study thus opens an original research route in the field of quantum spin ice.