Physical Review B (Condensed Matter and Materials Physics) -- February 1, 1999 -- Volume 59, Issue 5, pp. 3775-3782

Temperature and doping-level dependence of magnetic order in La_{2 – x}Sr_xNiO_4+d studied by muon spin rotation

Th. Jestädt, K. H. Chow, S. J. Blundell, W. Hayes, F. L. Pratt, and B. W. Lovett

Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PU, United Kingdom

M. A. Green, J. E. Millburn, and M. J. Rosseinsky

Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QR, United Kingdom

We report muon-spin-rotation (mSR) measurements on a series of compounds with composition La_2-xSr_xNiO_4+d with strontium doping level x between 0 and 1. A magnetic transition is found in all the samples studied, which occurs at a composition-dependent temperature, T_M. Below T_M clear precession signals are observed in zero applied magnetic field for all x, indicating the existence of at least short-range magnetic order on a time scale longer than 10 ^{– 8} s. Above T_M the magnetic correlation times decrease by several orders of magnitude. At x(approximate)0.33, we find peaks in both T_M and the zero-temperature staggered magnetization, an observation which we attribute to the higher degree of localization of the holes at this doping level. The measurements of T_M as a function of x extend the determination of Néel temperatures by previous neutron diffraction and mu SR measurements. © 1999 The American Physical Society

PII: S0163-1829(99)09505-3
PACS: 76.75.+i, 75.25.+z      Additional Information

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