Orbital and Spin Chains in ZnV2O4.
Our powder inelastic neutron scattering data indicate that ZnV2O4 is a system of spin chains that are three-dimensionally tangled in the cubic phase above 50 K due to randomly occupied t(2g) orbitals of V3+ (3d(2)) ions. Below 50 K in the tetragonal phase, the chains become straight due to antiferro-orbital ordering. This is evidenced by the characteristic wave vector dependence of the magnetic structure factor that changes from symmetric to asymmetric at the cubic-to-tetragonal transition.
Lee
S-H
SH
NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA.
Louca
D
D
Ueda
H
H
Park
S
S
Sato
T J
TJ
Isobe
M
M
Ueda
Y
Y
Rosenkranz
S
S
Zschack
P
P
Iñiguez
J
J
Qiu
Y
Y
Osborn
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R