Abstract
Ultrasound velocity measurements of the cubic spinel GeCo2O4 in the single crystal have been performed for the investigations of shear and compression moduli. The shear moduli reveal the absence of Jahn-Teller activity despite the presence of the orbital degeneracy in the Co2+ ions. This Jahn-Teller inactivity indicates that the intersite orbital-orbital interaction is much stronger than the Jahn-Teller coupling. The compression moduli reveal that the dominant path of the exchange interactions for the antiferromagnetic transition lies in the [111] direction. This exchange-path anisotropy is consistent with the antiferromagnetic structure with the wave vector q ∥ [111], suggesting the presence of bond frustration among several ferromagnetic and antiferromagientic interactions. In the JT-inactive condition, the bond frustration can be induced by geometrical orbital frustration of t2g-t2g interaction between the Co2+ ions which can be realized in the pyrochlore lattice of the high spin Co2+ with t2g -orbital degeneracy. In GeCo2O4, the tetragonal elongation below TN releases the orbital frustration by quenching the orbital degeneracy.
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