Anisotropic spin freezing in the S=1/2 zigzag ladder compound SrCuO2

Abstract

Using magnetic neutron scattering we characterize an unusual low temperature phase in orthorhombic SrCuO2. The material contains zigzag spin ladders formed by pairs of S=1/2 chains (J=180 meV) coupled through a weak frustrated interaction |J'|<0.1J. At T<Tc1=5.0(4)K an elastic peak develops in a gapless magnetic excitation spectrum indicating spin freezing on a time scale larger than 200 picoseconds. While the frozen state has long range commensurate antiferromagnetic order along the chains with the correlation length exceeding 200 lattice periods along the c-axis and a substantial correlation length of 60(25) spacings along the a-axis perpendicular to the zigzag plane, only 2 lattice units are correlated along the b-axis which is the direction of the frustrated interactions. The frozen magnetic moment of each Cu ion is very small, 0.033(7) Bohr magneton even at T=0.35K, and has unusual temperature dependence with a cusp at Tc2=1.5K reminiscent of a phase transition. We argue that slow dynamics of stripe-like cooperative magnetic defects in tetragonal a-c planes yield this anisotropic frozen state.

4 pages, LaTeX, submitted to PRL

References in corpus (2)

• Reduction of ordered moment and Neel temperature of quasi one-dimensional antiferromagnets Sr2CuO3 and Ca2CuO3
• Phase Diagram of the S = 1/2 Frustrated Coupled Ladder System

Cited by in corpus (35)

• Heat transport by lattice and spin excitations in the spin chain compounds SrCuO_2 and Sr_2CuO_3
• Reply to Comment on "Competition between helimagnetism and commensurate quantum spin correlations in LiCu2O2"
• Ballistic heat transport of quantum spin excitations as seen in SrCuO2
• Thermal conductivity and specific heat of the linear chain cuprate Sr${}_2$CuO${}_3$: Evidence for thermal transport via spinons
• Finite-temperature dynamical magnetic susceptibility of quasi-one-dimensional frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnets
• Spinons in the strongly correlated copper oxide chains in SrCuO2
• Energy separation of single-particle and continuum states in a S=1/2 weakly-coupled chains antiferromagnet
• Disorder from order among anisotropic next-nearest-neighbor Ising spin chains in SrHo${}_2$O${}_4$
• Phase diagram of the frustrated spin ladder
• Field-induced 3- and 2-dimensional freezing in a quantum spin liquid
• Spin pseudogap in Ni-doped SrCuO2
• Spinon heat transport and spin-phonon interaction in the antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain cuprates Sr2CuO3 and SrCuO2
• Disorder-induced Spin Gap in the Zigzag Spin-1/2 Chain Cuprate Sr_{0.9}Ca_{0.1}CuO_2
• Dimensional Control of Octahedral Tilt in SrRuO3 via Infinite-layered Oxides
• Crystals for neutron scattering studies of quantum magnetism
• Optical studies of gap, hopping energies and the Anderson-Hubbard parameter in the zigzag-chain compound SrCuO2
• Magnetic ordering of weakly coupled frustrated quantum spin chains
• Spin Gap in the Single Spin-1/2 Chain Cuprate Sr${}_{1.9}$Ca${}_{0.1}$CuO${}_3$
• Itineracy Effects on Spin Correlations in 1D Mott Insulators
• Low temperature ballistic spin transport in the S=1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain compound SrCuO2
• Unraveling higher-order corrections in the spin dynamics of RIXS spectra
• 63Cu NQR evidence of dimensional crossover to anisotropic 2d regime in S= 1/2 three-leg ladder Sr2Cu3O5
• Crystal growth of the non-magnetic Zn${}^{2+}$ and magnetic Co${}^{2+}$ doped quasi one-dimensional spin chain compound SrCuO${}_2$ using the travelling solvent floating zone method
• Dimerization and spin-decoupling in two-leg Heisenberg ladder with frustrated trimer rungs
• Impurities in weakly coupled quantum spin chains Sr${}_2$CuO${}_3$ and SrCuO${}_2$
• Magnetic phase diagram of a quasi-one-dimensional quantum spin system
• The effect of different in-chain impurities on the magnetic properties of the spin chain compound SrCuO${}_2$ probed by NMR
• Magnons and continua in a magnetized and dimerized spin-1/2 chain
• Quantum spin chain as a potential realization of the Nersesyan-Tsvelik model
• Effects of quantum impurity spins on the magnetic properties of zigzag and linear spin chains
• Heisenberg Necklace Model in Magnetic Field
• Theory of electron-phonon interactions in extended correlated systems probed by resonant inelastic x-ray scattering
• Magnetic ordering in the ultra-pure site-diluted spin chain materials SrCu${}_{1-x}$Ni${}_x$O${}_2$
• Novel magnetic field tuning of quantum spin excitations in a weakly coupled $S=$1/2 Heisenberg spin chain as seen from NMR
• Tunable quantum spin chain with three-body interactions