Abstract
V2O3 famously features all four combinations of paramagnetic versus antiferromagnetic and metallic versus insulating states of matter in response to percent-level doping, pressure in the GPa range, and temperature below 300 K. Using time-of-flight neutron spectroscopy combined with density functional theory calculations of magnetic interactions, we have mapped and analyzed the inelastic magnetic neutron scattering cross section over a wide range of energy and momentum transfer in the chromium-stabilized antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic insulating phases. Our results reveal an important magnetic frustration and degeneracy of the paramagnetic insulating phase which is relieved by the rhombohedral-to-monoclinic transition at TN=185 K. This leads to the recognition that magnetic frustration is an inherent property of the paramagnetic phase in (V1-xCrx)2O3 and plays a key role in suppressing the magnetic long-range-ordering temperature and exposing a large phase space for the paramagnetic Mott metal-insulator transition to occur.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 011035 |
Journal | Physical Review X |
Volume | 9 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 21 2019 |
Funding
The authors would like to acknowledge helpful discussions with Sandor Toth, Arnab Banerjee, Michael Lawler, and Oleg Tchernyshyov. R. V. thanks Frank Lechermann for useful discussions. This project was supported by UT-Battelle LDRD No. 3211-2440. Work at IQM was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering through Grant No. DE-SC0019331. This research used resources at the Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). C. L. B. was supported through the Gordon and Betty Moore foundation under the EPIQS program GBMF4532. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Work of J. H. and O. D. at ORNL was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering through Grant No. DE-SC0016166. The work at BIT was supported by the National Science Foundation of China Grant No. 11572040. W. B. was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11227906). The work in Frankfurt was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft under Grant No. SFB/TRR 49.