Local magnetic order in the vacancy-disrupted spin ice
Phys. Rev. B 114, 204417 – Published 16 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/r2kt-8sbh
Abstract
We investigate how local magnetic correlations evolve when the classical pyrochlore spin ice is transformed into the partially disordered stuffed compound . Neutron scattering measurements were analyzed using real space magnetic pair distribution function, reciprocal space reverse Monte Carlo, and half-polarized neutron powder diffraction methods to connect the average crystal structure with local magnetic correlations. Both compounds retain long-range symmetry, but in the average structure does not fully capture the local Ho–O, Ti–O, and O–O bond-length disorder associated with partial Ho/Ti occupancy. Despite this disorder, half-polarized neutron powder diffraction shows that the Ho moments retain local Ising anisotropy and form spin-in/spin-out configurations on the tetrahedral network. In , real- and reciprocal-space analyses show a nearly ideal 2-in/2-out spin ice state at 0.3 K, with of tetrahedra satisfying the ice rule, followed by progressive thermal disordering on warming. In , most tetrahedra are magnetically incomplete because some tetrahedral vertices are occupied by nonmagnetic Ti rather than Ho; nevertheless, the dominant incomplete configurations are 2-in/1-out and 1-in/2-out, which are locally compatible with the ice rule if the missing Ho spin is restored. is therefore a vacancy-disrupted spin ice in which the local Ising character and short-range spin-in/spin-out correlations persist on a topologically incomplete magnetic network, while collective ice-rule correlations are strongly disrupted.