The Complex Magnetism in the Breathing Pyrochlore LiIn(Cr1−xRhx)4O8**Supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology under Grant No 2016YFA0300503.

Abstract

We perform a detailed investigation of the new ‘breathing’ pyrochlore compound LiInCr4O8 through Rh substitution with measurements of magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, and x-ray powder diffraction. The antiferromagnetic phase of LiInCr4O8 is found to be slowly suppressed with increasing Rh, up to the critical concentration of x = 0.1 where the antiferromagnetic phase is still observed with the peak in specific heat Tp = 12.5 K, slightly lower than Tp = 14.3 K for the x = 0 compound. From the measurements of magnetization we also uncover evidence that substitution increases the amount of frustration. Comparisons are made with the LiGayIn1−yCr4O8system as well as other frustrated pyrochlore-related materials and comparable amounts of frustration are found. The results of this work show that the engineered breathing pyrochlores present an important method to further understand the complex magnetism in frustrated systems.