Thermally-induced magnetic order from glassiness in elemental neodymium

TL;DR

This study reveals an unusual magnetic phase transition in elemental neodymium where increasing temperature induces a transition from a spin glass to a long-range multi-Q magnetic order, challenging conventional thermodynamic expectations.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates the emergence of long-range magnetic order from a spin glass in neodymium with temperature, supported by experimental microscopy and atomic spin dynamics simulations.

Findings

Long-range multi-Q order appears with increasing temperature.

Two analysis tools effectively quantify the glass transition temperature.

Simulations reproduce the phase transition and explain the origin of high-temperature order.

Abstract

Temperature in thermodynamics is synonymous with disorder, and responsible for ultimately destroying ordered phases. Here, we show an unusual magnetic transition where, with increasing the temperature of elemental neodymium, long-range multi-Q magnetic order emerges from a self-induced spin glass. Using temperature-dependent spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy, we characterize the local Q order in the spin-Q glass phase and quantify the emergence of long-range multi-Q order with increasing temperature. We develop two distinct analysis tools, which enable the quantification of the glass transition temperature, based on measured spatially-dependent magnetization. We compare these observations with atomic spin dynamics simulations, which reproduce the qualitative observation of a phase transition from a low-temperature spin glass phase to an intermediate ordered multi-Q phase. These simulations trace the origin of the unexpected high temperature order in weakened frustration driven by temperature-dependent sublattice correlations. These findings constitute an example of order from disorder and provide a rich platform to study magnetization dynamics in a self-induced spin glass.