This individual investigator award supports experimental investigations to explore the spatial and temporal correlations near magnetic phase transitions, which are tuned to zero temperature by compositional variation, pressure, or magnetic field. A combination of neutron scattering with lab-based heat capacity, magnetization, and electrical transport studies will be used. Previous work focused on materials where the interplay of local moment and itinerant moment magnetism is thought to lead to the formation of the zero temperature phase transition. This project will explore the quantum critical behaviors of two systems where the magnetism is predominantly itinerant: the T=0 quantum antiferromagnet Cr0.966V0.0034, and the ferromagnet Zr0.95Nb0.05Zn2. The second theme of the proposal is the synthesis of novel Kondo lattice ferromagnets from the Ce and Yb based equiatomic intermetallic series, especially the generation of ferromagnetic quantum critical points that can be tuned by pressure or magnetic field. The stability of ferromagnetic order and the process of moment compensation as the exchange interaction and carrier density are modified will be assessed. This project makes extensive use of national research facilities, and the students and postdocs involved in the research will be well prepared to become effective future users of these facilities. Further, they will be trained in single crystal synthesis techniques, an increasingly scarce but valuable research specialty.
Our primary interest is to understand the ways in which magnetism can be stabilized or alternatively suppressed by modifications to the composition and structure of magnetic materials, an issue that is central to the rational design of new classes of magnetic materials. All magnets ultimately lose their magnetic properties at sufficiently large temperatures, undergoing a phase transition from a low temperature state where the magnetic moments of the constituent atoms are aligned and static, to a high temperature state where the moments fluctuate and point in random directions. By analogy to more familiar phase transitions, such as the melting of ice into water, much is known about the way in which these moments begin to align or order with reduced temperature, first on short length scales and for short times, but ultimately over the entire sample and for arbitrarily long times. This project addresses the most extreme magnets: those that become magnetic in the limit of zero temperature. Unlike materials that become magnetic at higher temperatures, the fluctuations of the magnetic moments near but above zero temperature are due to their quantum mechanical nature. This project seeks to characterize this sort of quantum magnetic phase transition. It will use a variety of experimental techniques combining neutron scattering with magnetic, thermal, and electrical transport measurements. Synthesis of new families of these quantum magnets is central to this effort, while high pressures and high magnetic fields will be used to tune magnetic transitions to zero temperature. This project makes extensive use of national research facilities, including the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and the neutron scattering centers at NIST, Oak Ridge, and Argonne National Laboratories. Students and postdocs trained under this project will be expert future users for these facilities, as well as being conversant in the synthesis of novel bulk correlated electron systems, a rare but highly valued experimental skill.
