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    Quantum paramagnetism in a non-Kramers rare-earth oxide: Monoclinic Pr2Ti2O7

    Huiyuan Man1, Alireza Ghasemi1, Moein Adnani2, Maxime A. Siegler3, Elaf A. Anber4, Yufan Li5, Chia-Ling Chien5,6,7, Mitra L. Taheri4, Ching-Wu Chu2,8 et al.

    Collin L. Broholm1,4 and Seyed M. Koohpayeh1,4,9,*

    • 1Institute for Quantum Matter and Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA
    • 2Texas Center for Superconductivity and Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, USA
    • 3Department of Chemistry, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA
    • 4Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA
    • 5Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA
    • 6Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei 11519, Taiwan
    • 7Department of Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
    • 8Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
    • 9Ralph O'Connor Sustainable Energy Institute, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA

    • *koohpayeh@jhu.edu

    Phys. Rev. Materials 7, 063401 – Published 16 June, 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.7.063401

    Abstract

    Little is so far known about the magnetism of the A2B2O7 monoclinic layered perovskites that replace the spin-ice supporting pyrochlore structure for rA/rB>1.78. We show that high quality monoclinic Pr2Ti2O7 single crystals with a three-dimensional network of non-Kramers Pr3+ ions that interact through edge-sharing superexchange interactions, form a singlet ground-state quantum paramagnet that does not undergo any magnetic phase transitions down to, at least, 1.8 K. The chemical phase stability, structure, and magnetic properties of the layered perovskite Pr2Ti2O7 were investigated using x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and magnetization measurements. Synthesis of polycrystalline samples with the nominal compositions of Pr2Ti2+xO7 (−0.16≤x≤0.16) showed that deviations from the Pr2Ti2O7 stoichiometry lead to secondary phases of related structures including the perovskite phase Pr2/3TiO3 and the orthorhombic phases Pr4Ti9O24 and Pr2TiO5. No indications of site disordering (stuffing and antistuffing) or vacancy defects were observed in the Pr2Ti2O7 majority phase. A procedure for growth of high-structural-quality stoichiometric single crystals of Pr2Ti2O7 by the traveling solvent floating zone method is reported. Thermomagnetic measurements of single-crystalline Pr2Ti2O7 reveal an isolated singlet ground state that we associate with the low-symmetry crystal electric-field environments that split the (2J+1=9)-fold degenerate spin-orbital multiplets of the four differently coordinated Pr3+ ions into 36 isolated singlets resulting in an anisotropic temperature-independent van Vleck susceptibility at low T. A small isotropic Curie term is associated with 0.96(2)% noninteracting Pr4+ impurities.

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