Absence of static magnetic order in lightly-doped Ti1-xScxOCl down to 1.7 K

TL;DR

This study investigates the magnetic properties of lightly-doped Ti1-xScxOCl, revealing no static magnetic order or spin freezing down to 1.7 K, indicating the system remains non-magnetic at low doping levels.

Contribution

The paper provides experimental evidence that lightly-doped Ti1-xScxOCl does not develop magnetic order or spin freezing down to very low temperatures.

Findings

No magnetic ordering observed down to 1.7 K.

Light doping with Sc does not induce static magnetic order.

TiOCl remains non-magnetic at doping levels up to x=0.03.

Abstract

Impurity-induced magnetic order has been observed in many quasi-1D systems including doped variants of the spin-Peierls system CuGeO3. TiOCl is another quasi-1D quantum magnet with a spin-Peierls ground state, and the magnetic Ti sites of this system can be doped with non-magnetic Sc. To investigate the role of non-magnetic impurities in this system, we have performed both zero field and longitudinal field muSR experiments on polycrystalline Ti1-xScxOCl samples with x = 0, 0.01, and 0.03. We verified that TiOCl has a non-magnetic ground state, and we found no evidence for spin freezing or magnetic ordering in the lightly-doped Sc samples down to 1.7 K. Our results instead suggest that these systems remain non-magnetic up to the x = 0.03 Sc doping level.