Stripe disorder and dynamics in the hole-doped antiferromagnetic insulator La5/3Sr1/3CoO4

TL;DR

This study investigates the dynamic behavior of stripe phases in La5/3Sr1/3CoO4, revealing a disordered, glassy freezing of magnetic and charge stripes at low temperatures, with experimental evidence supporting theoretical predictions.

Contribution

It provides detailed experimental insights into the disorder and glassy dynamics of charge and spin stripes in La5/3Sr1/3CoO4, confirming and extending recent theoretical models.

Findings

Disordered charge and spin stripes are strongly dynamic at high temperatures.

Charge quenching remains incomplete below the charge ordering temperature.

Magnetic degrees of freedom freeze in a glassy manner at low temperatures.

Abstract

We report on an investigation into the dynamics of the stripe phase of La5/3Sr1/3CoO4, a material recently shown to have an hour-glass magnetic excitation spectrum. A combination of magnetic susceptibility, muon-spin relaxation and nuclear magnetic resonance measurements strongly suggest that the physics is determined by a disordered configuration of charge and spin stripes whose frustrated magnetic degrees of freedom are strongly dynamic at high temperature and which freeze out in a glassy manner as the temperature is lowered. Our results broadly confirm a recent theoretical prediction, but show that the charge quenching remains incomplete well below the charge ordering temperature and reveal, in detail, the manner in which the magnetic degrees of freedom are frozen.