Impurities in the weakly coupled quantum spin chains Sr2CuO3 and SrCuO2

Abstract

We study the effect of non-magnetic Zn$^{2+}$ (spin-$0$) and magnetic Ni$^{2+}$ (spin-$1$) impurities on the ground state and low-lying excitations of the quasi-one-dimensional spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg antiferromagnet Sr$_{2}$CuO$_{3}$ using inelastic neutron scattering, specific heat and bulk magnetization measurements. We show that 1 \% Ni$^{2+}$ doping in Sr$_2$CuO$_3$ results in a sizable spin gap in the spinon excitations, analogous to the case of Ni-doped SrCuO$_2$ previously reported [ref. 1]. However, a similar level of Zn$^{2+}$ doping in SrCuO$_2$, investigated here for comparison, did not reveal any signs of a spin gap. Magnetic ordering temperature was found to be suppressed in the presence of both Zn$^{2+}$ and Ni$^{2+}$ impurities, however, the rate of suppression due to Ni$^{2+}$ was found to be much more pronounced than for Zn$^{2+}$. Effect of magnetic field on the ordering temperature is investigated. We found that with increasing magnetic field, not only the magnetic ordering temperature gradually increases but the size of specific heat anomaly associated with the magnetic ordering also progressively enhances, which can be qualitatively understood as due to the field induced suppression of quantum fluctuations.