Quantum and thermal spin relaxation in the diluted spin ice<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Dy</mml:mi><mml:mrow><mml:mn>2</mml:mn><mml:mo>−</mml:mo><mml:mi>x</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:msub><mml:msub><mml:mi>M</mml:mi><mml:mi>x</mml:mi></mml:msub><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Ti</mml:mi><mml:mn>2</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">O</mml:mi><mml:mn>7</mml:mn></mml:msub></mml:…

J. Snyder, B. G. Ueland, Ari Mizel, Joanna S.G. Slusky, Hemamala I. Karunadasa, R. J. Cava, P. Schiffer

Abstract

We have studied the low-temperature ac magnetic susceptibility of the diluted spin ice compound ${\mathrm{Dy}}_{2\ensuremath{-}x}{M}_{x}{\mathrm{Ti}}_{2}{\mathrm{O}}_{7}$, where the magnetic Dy ions on the frustrated pyrochlore lattice have been replaced with nonmagnetic ions, $M=\mathrm{Y}$ or Lu. We examine a broad range of dilutions, $0\ensuremath{\leqslant}x\ensuremath{\leqslant}1.98$, and we find that the $T\ensuremath{\sim}16\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$ freezing is suppressed for low levels of dilution but re-emerges for $x>0.4$ and persists to $x=1.98$. This behavior can be understood as a nonmonotonic dependence of the quantum spin relaxation time with dilution. The results suggest that the observed spin freezing is fundamentally a single spin process that is affected by the local environment, rather than the development of spin-spin correlations as earlier data suggested.

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