Search

We report results of magnetization and $^{31}$P NMR measurements under high pressure up to 6.4~GPa on RbMoOPO$_4$Cl, which is a frustrated square-lattice antiferromagnet with competing nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor interactions. Anomalies in the pressure dependences of the NMR shift and the transferred hyperfine coupling constants indicate a structural phase transition at 2.6~GPa, which is likely to break mirror symmetry and triggers significant change of the exchange interactions. In fact, the NMR spectra in magnetically ordered states reveal a change from the columnar antiferromagnetic (CAF) order below 3.3~GPa to the N\'{e}el antiferromagnetic (NAF) order above 3.9~GPa. The spin lattice relaxation rate $1/T_1$ also indicates a change of dominant magnetic fluctuations from CAF-type to NAF-type with pressure. Although the NMR spectra in the intermediate pressure region between 3.3 and 3.9 GPa show coexistence of the CAF and NAF phases, a certain component of $1/T_1$ shows paramagnetic behavior with persistent spin fluctuations, leaving possibility for a quantum disordered phase. The easy-plane anisotropy of spin fluctuations with unusual nonmonotonic temperature dependence at ambient pressure gets reversed to the Ising anisotropy at high pressures. This unexpected anisotropic behavior for a spin 1/2 system may be ascribed to the strong spin-orbit coupling of Mo-4$d$ electrons., Comment: 19 pages, 20 figures

Motivated by an experimental finding that the successive phase transitions in $\alpha$-Sr$_2$CrO$_4$ observed at ambient pressure ceases to exist under high pressures, we carry out the density-functional-theory-based electronic structure calculations and demonstrate that the reversal of the crystal-field splitting reported previously is restored under high pressures, so that the orbital degrees of freedom disappears, resulting in the single phase transition that divides the system into high-temperature Mott insulating and low-temperature antiferromagnetic insulating phases., Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, to appear in JPS Conf. Proc. (Proceedings for SCES2019)

We here report magnetostriction measurements under pulsed megagauss fields using a high-speed 100 MHz strain monitoring system devised using fiber Bragg grating (FBG) technique with optical filter method. The optical filter method is a detection scheme of the strain of FBG, where the changing Bragg wavelength of the FBG reflection is converted to the intensity of reflected light to enable the 100 MHz measurement. In order to show the usefulness and reliability of the method, we report the measurements for solid oxygen, spin-controlled crystal, and volborthite, a deformed Kagom\'{e} quantum spin lattice, using static magnetic fields up to 7 T and non-destructive millisecond pulse magnets up to 50 T. Then, we show the application of the method for the magnetostriction measurements of CaV$_{4}$O$_{9}$, a two-dimensional antiferromagnet with spin-halves, and LaCoO$_{3}$, an anomalous spin-crossover oxide, in the megagauss fields., Comment: 9pages, 6 figures, Conference proceedings for MegaGauss16 at Kashiwa, Japan in Sept. 2018

The effects of off-stoichiometry and elemental substitution on electronic properties of iron-based ladder compound BaFe$_{2}$S$_{3}$ are investigated. Resistivity and magnetization are revealed to be quite sensitive to the stoichiometry of Fe atoms, and 10 \% deficiency at Fe sites reduces the antiferromagnetic transition temperature by 40 K. The antiferromagnetic transition temperature decreases even faster and collapse to zero with hole doping through 10 \% K substitution at Ba site, while the antiferromagnetic ordering phase remains with electron doping through 20 \% Co substitution at Fe site. Such electron-hole asymmetry is opposite to two-dimensional iron-based superconductors, and can be explained on the basis of both itinerant and localized electronic pictures.

All the iron-based superconductors identified to date share a square lattice composed of Fe atoms as a common feature, despite having different crystal structures. In copper-based materials, the superconducting phase emerges not only in square lattice structures but also in ladder structures. Yet iron-based superconductors without a square lattice motif have not been found despite being actively sought out. Here, we report the discovery of pressure-induced superconductivity in the iron-based spin-ladder material BaFe2S3, a Mott insulator with striped-type magnetic ordering below ~120 K. On the application of pressure this compound exhibits a metal-insulator transition at about 11 GPa, followed by the appearance of superconductivity below Tc = 14 K, right after the onset of the metallic phase. Our findings indicate that iron-based ladder compounds represent promising material platforms, in particular for studying the fundamentals of iron-based superconductivity., Comment: in Nature Materials, 20 July 2015

The pressure-induced changes in the optical properties of $\beta$-Na$_{0.33}$V$_2$O$_5$ single crystals at room temperature were studied by polarization-dependent Raman and far-infrared reflectivity measurements under high pressure. From the changes in the Raman- and infrared-active phonon modes in the pressure range 9 - 12 GPa a transfer of charge between the different V sites can be inferred. The importance of electron-phonon coupling in the low-pressure regime is discussed., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

Superconducting and structural phase transitions in a pyrochlore oxide Cd2Re2O7 are studied under high pressure by x-ray diffraction and electrical resistivity measurements. A rich P-T phase diagram is obtained, which contains at least two phases with the ideal and slightly distorted pyrochlore structures. It is found that the transition between them is suppressed with increasing pressure and finally disappears at a critical pressure Pc = 3.5 GPa. Remarkable enhancements in the residual resistivity as well as the coefficient A of the AT 2 term in the resistivity are found around the critical pressure. Superconductivity is detected only for the phase with the structural distortion. It is suggested that the charge fluctuations of Re ions play a crucial role in determining the electronic properties of Cd2Re2O7., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jpn

We report the observation of nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) of Cu from the sites near the doping center in the spin-Peierls system CuGe$_{1-x}$Si$_{x}$O$_3$. The signal appears as the satellites in the Cu NQR spectrum, and has a suppressed nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate indicative of a singlet correlation rather than an enhanced magnetic correlation near the doping center. Signal loss of Cu nuclei with no neighboring Si is also observed. We conclude from these observations that the doping-induced moments are not in the vicinity of the doping center but rather away from it., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett

Low-frequency spin dynamics in the S=1/2 antiferromagnetic spin-chain compound \alpha-VO(PO_3)_2 has been studied by means of 31P NMR. The nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate 1/T_1 at the P site exhibits H^{-1/2} dependence on the applied magnetic field (H) at temperatures (T) well above the intrachain coupling strength J/k_{B} = 3.50 K indicating one-dimensional diffusive spin dynamics. The diffusive contribution to 1/T_1 decreases on cooling as electronic spins acquire short-range antiferromagnetic correlations within the chain, and vanishes almost entirely around T \approx J/k_{B}. This is accompanied by an apparent increase of the spin-diffusion constant from the value expected in the classical limit. On the other hand, the field-independent part of 1/T_1 increases with decreasing temperature, which may be a precursor for the true long-range antiferromagnetic ordering found below T_{N} = 1.93 \pm 0.01 K., Comment: 9 pages, 11 embedded eps figures uses JPSJ.sty, revised for publication in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of 31P and 51V nuclei has been measured in a spin-1/2 alternating-chain compound (VO)_2P_2O_7. By analyzing the temperature variation of the 31P NMR spectra, we have found that (VO)_2P_2O_7 has two independent spin components with different spin-gap energies. The spin gaps are determined from the temperature dependence of the shifts at 31P and 51V sites to be 35 K and 68 K, which are in excellent agreement with those observed in the recent inelastic neutron scattering experiments [A.W. Garrett et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 745 (1997)]. This suggests that (VO)_2P_2O_7 is composed of two magnetic subsystems showing distinct magnetic excitations, which are associated with the two crystallographically-inequivalent V chains running along the b axis. The difference of the spin-gap energies between the chains is attributed to the small differences in the V-V distances, which may result in the different exchange alternation in each magnetic chain. The exchange interactions in each alternating chain are estimated and are discussed based on the empirical relation between the exchange interaction and the interatomic distance., Comment: 10 pages, 11 embedded eps figures, REVTeX, Submitted to Phys. Rev. B