Magnetic-field-induced transition from metastable spin glass to possible antiferromagnetic–ferromagnetic phase separation in Cd 0.5Cu 0.5Cr 2O 4

Abstract

Using ac susceptibility, dc magnetization and heat-capacity measurements, we have investigated the magnetic properties of Cd 0.5Cu 0.5Cr 2O 4. Cd 0.5Cu 0.5Cr 2O 4 has an extraordinary magnetic phase including a metastable spin-glass (SG) phase at zero field, a possible phase separation scenario of AFM/FM above ∼0.5 T field, and at intermediate fields, an apparent pseudo reentrant spin-glass (RSG) plateau is observed. These phenomena are closely correlated with the pinning effect of the Cu 2+ sublattice on the frustrated lattice.