Evidence of weak ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interaction at low temperature in Pb(Fe2/3W1/3)O3 multiferroic

Abstract

Disordered magnetoelectric Pb(Fe2/3W1/3)O3 (PFW) was synthesized through columbite solid state reaction method in pure perovskite phase. Saturation magnetization of 0.013μB/f. u. was observed at 5 K, with a clear opening in the magnetic hysteresis loop around the origin. Temperature dependent magnetic susceptibility (χ) measurements revealed two different magnetic orderings, TN1 ∼ 350 K and another cusp, TN2 below 20 K. The neutron diffraction studies were carried out at different temperatures to understand the existence of the controversial TN2. The variation in the magnetic peak intensity clearly show that while decreasing temperature from 300 K to 2 K the intensity of the magnetic peak increases. This observation along with the observation of hysteresis loop at temperature below 20 K and the cusp in magnetic susceptibility data, confirms the existence of interaction between weak ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism rather than spin-glassy nature or magnetic clusters.