Freezing of the octahedral tilt near ferromagnetic transition and appearance of a glassy phase at low temperature driven by the tilt instabilities in SrRuO₃

Abstract

The emergence of low temperature glassy phase in widely known itinerant ferromagnet SrRuO3 is remotely understood. In order to understand this aspect, we have undertaken a detailed temperature dependent (5–250 K) neutron diffraction study. We observe a freezing of the octahedral tilt near the ferromagnetic transition and an unusual deviation in the octahedral tilt near the onset of low temperature spin glass like phase. A reduction of the ordered magnetic moment and a decline in the total integrated magnetic intensity is observed around the temperature where the glassy behaviour starts to appear. The magnetotransport study also reveals the possibility for an additional magnetic ordering by demonstrating a peak in magnetoresistance at the low temperature side as well. The neutron diffraction study presented here provides useful information to understand the observed unusual low temperature magnetic phenomena in SrRuO₃.