Polycrystalline samples of LaSr1-xBaxNiO4 show a crossover from a state with metallic transport properties for x = 0 to an insulating state as x -> 1. The end member LaBaNiO4 with a nominal nickel Ni 3d7 configuration might therefore be regarded as a candidate for an antiferromagnetic insulator. However, we do not observe any magnetic ordering in LaBaNiO4 down to 1.5 K, and despite its insulating transport properties several other physical properties of LaBaNiO4 resemble those of metallic LaSrNiO4. Based on an analysis of electrical and thermal-conductivity data as well as magnetic-susceptibility and low-temperature specific-heat measurements we suggest that LaBaNiO4 is a Fermi glass with a finite electron density of states at the Fermi level but these states are localized.
We have investigated both static and dynamic magnetic properties of polycrystalline CaRu$_{1-x}$Sc$_{x}$O$_{3}$ system in order to clarify the role of Sc ions as a disorder for magnetic ordering. We have observed typical features of a ferromagnetic cluster glass state below around 40 K: (i) a broad, frequency-dependent peak in the ac magnetic susceptibility, (ii) a slow relaxation of the magnetization, and (iii) a continuous increase in the dc magnetic susceptibility in field cooling process. The composition dependence of characteristic parameters for the cluster glass state suggests that chem…
Thermoelectric properties of polycrystalline p-type ZrTe5 are reported in temperature (T) range 2 - 340 K. Thermoelectric power (S) is positive and reaches up to 458 uV/K at 340 K on increasing T. The value of Fermi energy 16 meV, suggests low carrier density of ~ 9.5 X 10^18 cm-3. A sharp anomaly in S data is observed at 38 K, which seems intrinsic to p-type ZrTe5. The thermal conductivity value is low (2 W/m-K at T = 300 K) with major contribution from lattice part. Electrical resistivity data shows metal to semiconductor transition at T ~ 150 K and non-Arrhenius behavior in the semiconducti…
We analyze an interacting Bose-Fermi mixture in a 1D disordered potential using a combination of renormalization group and variational methods. We obtain the complete phase diagram in the incommensurate case as a function of bosonic and inter-species interaction strengths, in the weak disorder limit. We find that the system is characterized by several phase transitions between superfluid and various glassy insulating states, including a new Bose-Fermi glass phase, where both species are coupled and localized. We show that the dynamical structure factor, as measured through Bragg scattering exp…
A lattice model of spinless interacting electrons is used to formulate the Landau theory of the Fermi liquid to electron glass quantum phase transition. We demonstrate that the presence of additional random site energies does not affect the character of the transition, once the replica symmetry breaking is considered self-consistently at the mean-field level. Inside the glass phase, the low temperature conductivity assumes a non-Fermi liquid ~ T^{3/2} form, in agreement with recent experiments.
We present the dielectric and magnetodielectric properties of Pr0.6Ca0.4MnO3 polycrystalline sample. Dielectric permittivity ({ε'}) (and d{ε'}/dT) portrays the charge order and other magnetic transitions observed in the magnetization measurement. Dielectric study has revealed a relaxation corresponding to ordering of polarons ~ 60 K that follows Arrhenius behaviour both in the presence and absence of magnetic field and another relaxation was noticed ~ 30 K only under a critical magnetic field (3.2 T) that shows critical slow down of electronic charges obeying power law. Further, the magnetic f…
We present a comprehensive study of the short-ranged nuclear and magnetic order in the two-dimensional spin glass, Mn$_{0.5}$Fe$_{0.5}$PS$_3$. Nuclear neutron scattering data reveal a random distribution of Mn$^{2+}$ and Fe$^{2+}$ ions within the honeycomb layers, which gives rise to a spin glass state through inducing competition between neighbouring exchange interactions, indicated in magnetic susceptibility data by a cusp at the glass transition, $T_g = 35$ K. Analysis of magnetic diffuse neutron scattering data collected for both single crystal and polycrystalline samples gives further ins…
We provide evidence for spin glass related magnetic gaps in the fermionic density of states below the freezing temperature. Model calculations are presented and proposed to be relevant for explaining resistivity measurements which observe a crossover from variable-range- to activated behavior. The magnetic field dependence of a hardgap and the low temperature decay of the density of states are given. In models with fermion transport a new metal-insulator transition is predicted to occur due to the spin-glass gap, anteceding the spin glass to quantum paramagnet transition at smaller spin densit…
We present measurements of the temperature dependence of electrical resistivity of CeRhSn up to ~ 27 kbar. At low temperatures, the electrical resistivity varies linearly with temperature for all pressures, indicating non-Fermi liquid behavior. Below a temperature Tf ~ 6 K, the electrical resistivity deviates from a linear dependence. We found that the low-temperature feature centered at T = Tf shows a pressure dependence dTf/dP ~ 30 mK/kbar which is typical of canonical spin glasses. This interplay between spin-glass-like and non-Fermi liquid behavior was observed in both CeRhSn and a Ce0.9La…
In the present work it is studied the fermionic van Hemmen model for the spin glass (SG) with a transverse magnetic field $Γ$. In this model, the spin operators are written as a bilinear combination of fermionic operators, which allows the analysis of the interplay between charge and spin fluctuations in the presence of a quantum spin flipping mechanism given by $Γ$. The problem is expressed in the fermionic path integral formalism. As results, magnetic phase diagrams of temperature versus the ferromagnetic interaction are obtained for several values of chemical potential $μ$ and $Γ$. The $Γ$ …
We consider the ground state reorganization driven by an increasing nearest neighbor repulsion U for spinless fermions in a strongly disordered ring. When U -> 0, the electrons form a glass with Anderson localized states. At half filling, a regular array of charges (Mott insulator) is pinned by the random substrate when U -> \infty. Between those two insulating limits, we show that there is an intermediate regime where the electron glass becomes more liquid before crystallizing. The liquid-like behavior of the density-density correlation function is accompanied by an enhancement of the persist…
When a system of spinless fermions in a disordered mesoscopic ring becomes instable between the inhomogeneous configuration driven by the random potential (Anderson insulator) and the homogeneous one driven by repulsive interactions (Mott insulator), the persistent current can be enhanced by orders of magnitude. This is illustrated by a study of the change of the ground state energy under twisted boundary conditions using the density matrix renormalization group algorithm.
CuAl2O4 is a normal spinel oxide having quantum spin, S=1/2 for Cu2+. It is a rather unique feature that the Cu2+ ions of CuAl2O4 sit at a tetrahedral position, not like the usual octahedral position for many oxides. At low temperatures, it exhibits all the thermodynamic evidence of a quantum spin glass. For example, the polycrystalline CuAl2O4 shows a cusp centered at ~2 K in the low-field dc magnetization data and a clear frequency dependence in the ac magnetic susceptibility while it displays logarithmic relaxation behavior in a time dependence of the magnetization. At the same time, there …
CaRuO_3 is perovskite with an orthorhombic distortion and is believed to be close to magnetic ordering. Magnetic studies of single crystal and polycrystalline CaRu_{1-x}Cu_xO_3 (0\le x \le 15 at.%Cu) reveal that spin-glass-like transition develops for x\le 7 at.%Cu and obtained value for effective magnetic moment p_{eff}=3.55 mu_B for x=5 at.% Cu, single crystal, indicates presence of Ru^{5+}. At higher Cu concentrations more complex magnetic behaviors are observed. Electrical resistivity measured on polycrystalline samples shows metal-to-insulator transition (MIT) at 51 K for only 2 at.% Cu. …
In this report, the magnetic behaviour of $NiCr_{2}O_{4}$ bulk and nanoparticle samples under different applied magnetic field has been investigated extensively. Nanoparticles of $NiCr_{2}O_{4}$ were obtained by mechanical milling of polycrystalline powder prepared by polyol method. FC-ZFC measurement of bulk at different applied magnetic field has revealed the existence of a ferrimagnetic transition around 66K followed by an antiferromagnetic transition close to 30K. However, its nano counterpart has shown remarkable change in magnetic properties - a suppression of ferrimagnetic transition ac…
We have combined the dynamical mean field theories of the Mott transition and the spin glass in infinite dimensions and derived a metallic spin-glass state from a random spin-fermion model.
The layered compound with distorted Kagome nets, Dy3Ru4Al12, was previously reported to undergo antiferromagnetic ordering below (TN=) 7 K, based on investigations on single crystals. Here, we report the results of our investigation of ac and dc magnetic susceptibility (\c{hi}), isothermal remnant magnetization (MIRM), heat-capacity, magnetocaloric effect and magnetoresistance measurements on polycrystals. The present results reveal that there is an additional magnetic anomaly around 20 K, as though the Néel order is preceded by the formation of ferromagnetic clusters. We attribute this featur…
A model of spinless interacting electrons in presence of randomness is examined using an extended dynamical mean-field formulation. When the interaction strength is large as compared to the Fermi energy, a low temperature glassy phase is identified, which in our formulation corresponds to a replica-symmetry breaking instability. The glassy phase is characterized by a pseudo-gap in the single particle density of states, reminiscent of the Coulomb gap of Efros and Shklovskii. Due to ergodicity breaking, the ``zero-field cooled'' compressibility of this electron glass vanishes at T=0, consistent …
The competition between spin glass ($SG$) and antiferromagnetic order ($AF$) is analyzed in two sublattice fermionic Ising models in the presence of a transverse $Γ$ and a parallel $H$ magnetic fields. The exchange interaction follows a Gaussian probability distribution with mean $-4J_0/N$ and standard deviation $J\sqrt{32/N}$, but only spins in different sublattices can interact. The problem is formulated in a path integral formalism, where the spin operators have been expressed as bilinear combinations of Grassmann fields. The results of two fermionic models are compared. In the first one, t…
In this study an extended low energy phase diagram for NaxCoO2 is experimentally established with emphasis on the high x range. It is based on systematic heat capacity studies on both polycrystalline and single crystalline samples and on uSR measurements. Main features are the existence of mass enhancement, spin fluctuations without long-range order, and magnetic order with associated Fermi surface gapping. The latter is seen in the electronic density of states (DOS) and suppression of nuclear specific heat. While there is agreement between the band structure and the low energy DOS in the low …
A polycrystalline sample of vesignieite BaCu3V2O8(OH)2 comprising a nearly ideal kagome lattice composed of Cu2+ ions carrying spin 1/2 has been synthesized and studied by magnetization and heat capacity measurements. Magnetic susceptibility shows a neither long range order, a spin glass transition nor a spin gap down to 2 K, in spite of a moderately strong antiferromagnetic interaction of J/kB = 53 K between nearest-neighbor spins. A broad peak observed at a temperature corresponding to 0.4J in intrinsic magnetic susceptibility indicates a marked development of the short-range order. The grou…
We report progress in understanding the fermionic Ising spin glass with arbitrary filling. A crossover from a magnetically disordered single band phase via two intermediate bands just below the freezing temperature to a 3-band structure at still lower temperatures - beyond an almost random field instability - is shown to emerge in the magnetic phase. An attempt is made to explain the exact solution in terms of a quantum Parisi phase. A central nonmagnetic band is found and seen to become sharply separated at T=0 by gaps from upper and lower magnetic bands. The gap sizes tend towards zero as th…
Single crystal and polycrystalline samples of MoP$_4$ with a black-phosphorus-derived structure have been successfully synthesized by a high-pressure technique. The polycrystalline samples show a large positive magnetoresistance and a small negative Seebeck coefficient at low temperatures, reflecting a semi-metallic nature with high-mobility electrons. Consistent with the transport properties, the band structure calculation reveals a semi-metallic state with the presence of two types of Dirac nodes slightly below the Fermi level. The Dirac node along the $Γ$-X direction normal to the phosphoru…
We show that a new glassy phase can emerge in presence of strong magnetic frustration and quantum fluctuations. It is a Valence Bond Glass. We study its properties solving the Hubbard-Heisenberg model on a Bethe lattice within the large $N$ limit introduced by Affleck and Marston. We work out the phase diagram that contains Fermi liquid, dimer and valence bond glass phases. This new glassy phase has no electronic or spin gap (although a pseudo-gap is observed), it is characterized by long-range critical valence bond correlations and is not related to any magnetic ordering. As a consequence it …
We report the synthesis, electronic properties, and electronic structure of LaIrSi-type BaPtP with a noncentrosymmetric cubic crystal structure. Electrical resistivity and heat capacity data taken by using polycrystalline samples indicated that BaPtP is a metal, which was further supported by first principles calculations. A polycrystalline sample of BaPtP showed a zero resistivity below 0.2 K due to the superconducting transition. The first principles calculation results indicated that the spin splitting at around the Fermi energy is large in BaPtP. These results suggest that BaPtP is likely …
A longstanding open problem in condensed matter physics is whether or not a strongly disordered interacting insulator can be mapped to a system of effectively non-interacting localized excitations. We investigate this issue on the insulating side of the 3D metal-insulator transition (MIT) in phosphorus doped silicon using the new technique of terahertz two dimensional coherent spectroscopy. Despite the intrinsically disordered nature of these materials, we observe coherent excitations and strong photon echoes that provide us with a powerful method for the study of their decay processes. We ext…
Results of DC and frequency dependent conductivity in the quantum limit, i.e. hw > kT, for a broad range of dopant concentrations in nominally uncompensated, crystalline phosphorous doped silicon and amorphous niobium-silicon alloys are reported. These materials fall under the general category of disordered insulating systems, which are referred to as electron glasses. Using microwave resonant cavities and quasi-optical millimeter wave spectroscopy we are able to study the frequency dependent response on the insulating side of the metal-insulator transition. We identify a quantum critical regi…
Low-temperature muon spin-lattice relaxation measurements in the non-Fermi-liquid heavy-fermion alloys UCu_{5-x}Pd_x, x = 1.0 and 1.5, indicate inhomogeneously distributed f-electron spin fluctuation rates, and exhibit a time-field scaling of the muon relaxation function indicative of long-lived spin correlations. In UCu_4Pd the scaling exponent γis small and temperature independent. In UCu_{3.5}Pd_{1.5} γvaries with temperature, increasing with decreasing temperature similar to spin-glass AgMn. This suggests that the spin-glass state found for x \gtrsim 2 in UCu_{5-x}Pd_x modifies the low-fre…
To get insight into the nature of the electronic fluid in the frustration-driven charge glasses, we investigate in-plane and out-of-plane charge transport for several quasi-triangular-lattice organic systems, $θ$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$X [X=RbZn(SCN)$_4$, CsZn(SCN)$_4$ and I$_3$]. These compounds host a charge order, charge glass and Fermi liquid, depending on the strength of charge frustration. We find that the resistivity exhibits extremely two-dimensional (2D) anisotropy and contrasting temperature dependence between in the in-plane and out-of-plane directions in the charge glass phase, qualitativel…
We present a detailed study of the electronic transport properties on a single crystalline specimen of the moderately disordered heavy fermion system URh$_2$Ge$_2$. For this material, we find glassy electronic transport in a single crystalline compound. We derive the temperature dependence of the electrical conductivity and establish metallicity by means of optical conductivity and Hall effect measurements. The overall behavior of the electronic transport properties closely resembles that of metallic glasses, with at low temperatures an additional minor spin disorder contribution. We argue tha…
Polycrystalline samples of the isostructural alloys UNi1-xCoxSi2 (0 <= x <= 1) were studied by means of x-ray powder diffraction, magnetization, electrical resistivity and specific heat measurements, at temperatures down to 2 K and in magnetic fields up to 5 T. The experimental data revealed an evolution from strongly anisotropic ferromagnetism with pronounced Kondo effect, observed for the alloys with x < 0.98 and being gradually suppressed with rising Co-content, to spin-glass-like states with dominant spin fluctuations, seen for the sample with x = 0.98. Extrapolation of the value of TC(x) …
