The Complex Magnetism in the Breathing Pyrochlore LiIn(Cr$_{1-x}$Rh$_x$)$_4$O$_8$
Dong-Yi Wang1, Cheng Tan1, Kevin Huang1, Lei Shu1,2
1State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433 2Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing 210093
Abstract：We perform a detailed investigation of the new 'breathing' pyrochlore compound LiInCr$_4$O$_8$ through Rh substitution with measurements of magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, and x-ray powder diffraction. The antiferromagnetic phase of LiInCr$_4$O$_8$ is found to be slowly suppressed with increasing Rh, up to the critical concentration of $x=0.1$ where the antiferromagnetic phase is still observed with the peak in specific heat $T_{\rm p}=12.5$ K, slightly lower than $T_{\rm p}=14.3$ K for the $x=0$ compound. From the measurements of magnetization we also uncover evidence that substitution increases the amount of frustration. Comparisons are made with the LiGa$_y$In$_{1-y}$Cr$_4$O$_8$ system as well as other frustrated pyrochlore-related materials and comparable amounts of frustration are found. The results of this work show that the engineered breathing pyrochlores present an important method to further understand the complex magnetism in frustrated systems.
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2016, Vol. 33 
