Bose glass and Mott glass of quasiparticles in a doped quantum magnet.

The low-temperature states of bosonic fluids exhibit fundamental quantum effects at the macroscopic scale: the best-known examples are Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluidity, which have been tested experimentally in a variety of different systems. When bosons interact, disorder can destroy condensation, leading to a 'Bose glass'. This phase has been very elusive in experiments owing to the absence of any broken symmetry and to the simultaneous absence of a finite energy gap in the spectrum. Here we report the observation of a Bose glass of field-induced magnetic quasiparticles in a doped quantum magnet (bromine-doped dichloro-tetrakis-thiourea-nickel, DTN). The physics of DTN in a magnetic field is equivalent to that of a lattice gas of bosons in the grand canonical ensemble; bromine doping introduces disorder into the hopping and interaction strength of the bosons, leading to their localization into a Bose glass down to zero field, where it becomes an incompressible Mott glass. The transition from the Bose glass (corresponding to a gapless spin liquid) to the Bose-Einstein condensate (corresponding to a magnetically ordered phase) is marked by a universal exponent that governs the scaling of the critical temperature with the applied field, in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions. Our study represents a quantitative experimental account of the universal features of disordered bosons in the grand canonical ensemble.

Co3(RL)2(hfac)6 ladder complex of 5-[4-(N-tert-butyl-N-aminoxyl)phenyl]pyrimidine.

5-[4-(N-tert-butyl-N-aminoxyl)phenyl]pyridimine (4NITPhPyrim = RL) forms a 1-D ladder polymer complex with Co(hfac)2 of stoichiometry Co3(RL)2(hfac)6, having antiparallel [Co(II)RL]n linear chains (rails) that are cross-linked by Pyrim-Co(hfac)2-Pyrim rungs. The magnetic behavior above 100 K is consistent with contributions from one high-spin Co(II) ion (the cross-link, S = 3/2) plus two Co-ON units with strongly antiferromagnetic (AFM) metal-radical exchange (each S = 1). The chiT data show an AFM downturn as the temperature drops. Assuming weak exchange along chain portions of the polymer due to poor spin polarization across the phenyl-pyrimidine bond in RL, a linear three-spin (S = 1, 3/2, and 1) fit to the T > 18 K data yields an AFM cross-linker (rung) effective exchange of J(CL)/k = (-)5.3 K = (-)3.7 cm(-)(1). Superexchange (sigma-orbital overlap) is a likely mechanism for the effective AFM exchange between CoON and Co spin sites in the three-spin groupings.

Cyclic M2(RL)2 coordination complexes of 5-(3-[N-tert-Butyl-N-aminoxyl]phenyl)pyrimidine with paramagnetic transition metal dications.

5-(3-(N-tert-Butyl-N-aminoxyl)phenyl)pyrimidine (RL = 3NITPhPyrim) forms isostructural cyclic M2(RL)2 cyclic dimers with M(hfac)2 (M = Mn, Co, Cu; hfac = hexafluoroacetylacetonate). Mn2(hfac)4(RL)2 exhibits strong antiferromagnetic Mn-RL exchange, with weak ferromagnetic exchange (0.7 cm(-1)) between Mn-RL units that is consistent with a spin polarization exchange mechanism. The magnetic moment of Co2(hfac)4(RL)2 at higher temperatures is consistent with strongly antiferromagnetic exchange within the Co-NIT units and tends toward zero below 50 K at lower magnetic fields. Cu2(hfac)4(RL)2 shows more complex behavior, with no high-temperature plateau in chiT(T) up to 300 K but a monotonic decrease down to about 100 K. The Cu(II)-nitroxide bonds decrease by 0.2-0.3 A over the same temperature range, corresponding to a change of nitroxide coordination from axial to equatorial. This thermally reversible Jahn-Teller distortion leads to a thermally induced spin state conversion from a high-spin, paramagnetic state at higher temperature to a low-spin state at lower temperature. This spin state conversion is accompanied by a reversible solid-state thermochromic change between dull yellow-brown at room temperature and green at 77 K.