Neutron Scattering of the Frustrated Magnets Ba2YOsO6 and Yb2Ti2O7

Abstract

First we shall consider the rare-earth titanate Yb2Ti2O7 which has been extensively studied within the past two decades but is still not very well understood. There has been much debate over the nature of the magnetic ground state of this system with studies reporting the development of long-range order below 250mK to the absence of long-range order below 250mK. One culprit suspected of generating these differences in behaviour of the ground state is the effect of crystal growth on sample quality. In order to address this discrepancy, measurements of the crystal-field levels of Yb2Ti2O7 were conducted on two powder samples of different composition since the exact ground state selection depends on size and anisotropy of the magnetic moment. The second focus of this thesis concerns the family of rock-salt ordered double perovskites of the form Ba2YXO6 in which X is either a 4d or 5d magnetic ion. The interplay between the strong spin orbit coupling expected for such heavy magnetic ions and frustration has been theoretically predicted to exhibit a variety of exotic phenomena. Neutron scattering is utilized to investigate the low temperature dynamics of the system Ba2YOsO6 to compare with that observed in the 4d analog, Ba2YRuO6.