Absence of structural correlations of magnetic defects in heavy fermion LiV2O4

TL;DR

This study uses high-energy x-ray diffraction to investigate the arrangement of magnetic defects in LiV2O4 and finds no evidence of structural correlations or periodicity in defect distribution.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed diffraction analysis showing the lack of long-range or short-range correlations of magnetic defects in LiV2O4.

Findings

No superstructure peaks detected

Defects are randomly distributed

Absence of periodic defect arrangements

Abstract

Magnetic defects have pronounced effects on the magnetic properties of the face-centered cubic compound LiV2O4. The magnetic defects arise from crystal defects present within the normal spinel structure. High-energy x-ray diffraction studies were performed on LiV2O4 single crystals to search for superstructure peaks or any other evidence of periodicity in the arrangement of the crystal defects present in the lattice. Entire reciprocal lattice planes are mapped out with help of synchrotron radiation. No noticeable differences in the x-ray diffraction data between a crystal with high magnetic defect concentration and a crystal with low magnetic defect concentration have been found. This indicates the absence of any long-range periodicity or short-range correlations in the arrangements of the crystal/magnetic defects.