Graduation Year

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.S.

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.)

Degree Granting Department

Physics

Major Professor

Hariharan Srikanth, Ph.D.

Co-Major Professor

Manh-Huong Phan, Ph.D.

Committee Member

William G. Matthews, Ph.D.

Keywords

Complex oxides, Frustration, Magnetism, Spin Glass

Abstract

Complex oxides represent an intersection of play grounds for the existence of exciting new fundamental physics and materials with potential technological implications. The realization of many exciting properties of these systems rely on the coupling of electronic, structural and magnetic degrees of freedom. Additionally, competing interactions within each type of coupling discussed previously lead to theoretically diverse ground states, which under the application of an external perturbation, can be tuned and probed.

Ca3Co¬2-xMnxO6 represent a quasi-one dimensional Ising spin chain system oriented in an antiferromagnetic triangular lattice. The exotic behavior of the undoped compound Ca3Co2O6 has inspired work on continuing the fundamental understanding of frustrated magnetic systems. Through chemical doping of Manganese ions, the magnetic properties, namely the exotic spin glass like behavior can be enhanced for a modest doping range of x

The effects of particle dimensionality were probed through the application of varied calcining conditions as to attempt to observe the altering of magnetic properties, mainly the out of equilibrium magnetization plateaus observed in Ca3Co1.75 Mn0.25O6. It appears that within the particle sizes studied the magnetic behavior is highly robust, even considering the inclusion of ionic disorder.

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