Direct observation of local Mn-Mn distances in the paramagnetic compound CsMnxMg1-xBr3

Abstract

We introduce a novel method for local structure determination with a spatial resolution of the order of 0.01 Angstroem. It can be applied to materials containing clusters of exchange-coupled magnetic atoms. We use neutron spectroscopy to probe the energies of the cluster excitations which are determined by the interatomic coupling strength J. Since for most materials J is related to the interatomic distance R through a linear relation dJ/dR=α (for dR/R<<1), we can directly derive the local distance R from the observed excitation energies. This is exemplified for the mixed one-dimensional paramagnetic compound CsMnxMg1 xBr3 (x=0.05, 0.10) containing manganese dimers oriented along the hexagonal c-axis. Surprisingly, the resulting Mn-Mn distances R do not vary continuously with increasing internal pressure, but lock in at some discrete values.

16 pages, 2 tables, 3 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Single-ion versus two-ion anisotropy in magnetic compounds: A neutron scattering study

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• Defect propagation in one-, two-, and three-dimensional compounds doped by magnetic atoms
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