Field Angle Tuned Metamagnetism and Lifschitz Transitions in UPt3.

Strongly correlated electronic systems can harbor a rich variety of quantum spin states. Understanding and controlling such spin states in quantum materials is of great current interest. Focusing on the simple binary system UPt3 with ultrasound (US) as a probe we identify clear signatures in field sweeps demarkating new high field spin phases. Magnetostriction (MS) measurements performed up to 65 T also show signatures at the same fields confirming these phase transitions. At the very lowest temperatures (<200 mK) we also observe magneto-acoustic quantum oscillations which for θ = 90° (B||c-axis) and vicinity abruptly become very strong in the 24.8-30 T range. High resolution magnetization measurements for this same angle reveal a continuous variation of the magnetization implying the subtle nature of the implied transitions. With B rotated away from the c-axis, the US signatures occur at nearly the same field. These transitions merge with the separate sequence of the well known metamagnetic transition which commences at 20 T for θ = 0° but moves to higher fields as 1/cosθ. This merge, suggesting a tricritical behavior, occurs at θ ≈ 51° from the ab-plane. This is an unique off-symmetry angle where the length change along the c-axis is precisely zero due to the anisotropic nature of MS in UPt3 for all magnetic field values.

The linear and non-linear magnetic response of a tri-uranium single molecule magnet.

We report here low temperature magnetization isotherms for the single molecule magnet, (UO2-L)3. By analyzing the low temperature magnetization in terms of M = χ 1 B + χ 3 B 3 we extract the linear susceptibility χ 1 and the leading order nonlinear susceptibility χ 3. We find that χ 1 exhibits a peak at a temperature of T 1 = 10.4 K with χ 3 also exhibiting a peak but at a reduced temperature T 3 = 5 K. At the lowest temperatures the isotherms exhibit a critical field B c = 11.5 T marked by a clear point of inflection. A minimal Hamiltonian employing S = 1 (pseudo) spins with only a single energy scale (successfully used to model the behavior of bulk f-electron metamagnets) is shown to provide a good description of the observed linear scaling between T 1, T 3 and B c. We further show that a Heisenberg Hamiltonian previously employed by Carretta et al (2013 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 25 486001) to model this single molecule magnet gives formulas for the angle averaged susceptibilities (in the Ising limit) very similar to those of the minimal model.

Note: nonlinear susceptibility from high DC field torque magnetometry.

Torque magnetometry is a convenient technique to measure the magnetic properties of anisotropic materials. Advances in micromachining have made torque magnetometers precise and reliable even in adverse conditions such as very high magnetic fields and very low temperatures. In most applications with such magnetometers the measured torque signals are used to arrive at the linear magnetic susceptibility. In this short note we extend torque magnetometry to measure nonlinear susceptibilities and illustrate our methods with representative data on the heavy fermion compound UPt3.

High capacity hydrogen absorption in transition-metal ethylene complexes: consequences of nanoclustering.

We have recently shown that organo-metallic complexes formed by laser ablating transition metals in ethylene are high hydrogen absorbers at room temperature (Phillips and Shivaram 2008 Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 105505). Here we show that the absorption percentage depends strongly on the ethylene pressure. High ethylene pressures (>100 mTorr) result in a lowered hydrogen uptake. Transmission electron microscopy measurements reveal that while low pressure ablations result in metal atoms dispersed uniformly on a near atomic scale, high pressure ones yield distinct nanoparticles with electron energy-loss spectroscopy demonstrating that the metal atoms are confined solely to the nanoparticles.

High capacity hydrogen absorption in transition metal-ethylene complexes observed via nanogravimetry.

Using a surface acoustic wave based high resolution gravimetric technique where samples close to a monolayer are measured we observe high weight percentage hydrogen (H(2)) uptake with rapid kinetics at room temperature in transition metal (TM) ethylene (C(2)H(4)) complexes formed by laser ablation. By ablating titanium (Ti) in C(2)H(4) we obtain a complex that exhibits 12 wt % uptake of H(2) with substitution by deuterium providing a doubling. Mass spectroscopic studies during ablation of Ti show presence of a species, with a mass = 78 amu, a likely candidate for the high H(2) uptake.

A technique to measure hydrogen absorption in isolated nanometer structures.

We describe an apparatus assembled to measure hydrogen absorption on a monolayer of isolated nanometer scale entities. Utilizing inexpensive and readily available high frequency surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors we achieve a sensitivity of 4 pg, sufficient to detect hydrogen uptake at less than 1% in nanogram level samples of such entities at room temperature. Results of hydriding rare earth metal nanoparticles and a transition metal-carbon complex measured with 315 MHz SAW resonators are presented. However, the design of our apparatus is general and can be used with a wide variety of commercial SAW sensors.