Abstract
We present a comprehensive study of the short-ranged nuclear and magnetic order in the two-dimensional spin glass, . Nuclear neutron scattering data reveal a random distribution of and ions within the honeycomb layers, which gives rise to a spin glass state through inducing competition between neighboring exchange interactions, indicated in magnetic susceptibility data by a cusp at the glass transition, K. Analysis of magnetic diffuse neutron scattering data collected for both single-crystal and polycrystalline samples gives further insight into the origin of the spin glass phase, with spin correlations revealing a mixture of satisfied and unsatisfied correlations between magnetic moments within the honeycomb planes, which can be explained by considering the magnetic structures of the parent compounds, and . We found that, on approaching from above, an ensemble-averaged correlation length of developed between satisfied correlations, and below , the glassy behavior gave rise to a distance-independent correlation between unsatisfied moments. Correlations between the planes were found to be very weak, which mirrored our observations of rodlike structures parallel to the c* axis in our single-crystal diffraction measurements, confirming the two-dimensional nature of .
1 More- Received 19 June 2020
- Accepted 13 July 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.4.084401
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