The Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter has dedicated the cover of the Volume 31, Number 6 (2019) to the SPIN study entitled: The huge effect of Mn substitution on the structural and magnetic properties of LaFeAsO: the La(Fe,Mn)AsO system
A Martinelli et al, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 31 (2019) 064001
AUTHORS: A. Martinelli, P. Manfrinetti, A. Provino, C. Ritter, C. Ferdeghini
Chemical substitution is one of the most effective methods that can be applied to modify and disentangle the structural, magnetic and electronic properties, thus providing fundamental insights into the solid state physics of materials. In this work, authors investigated how these properties are affected by Ru-substitution in LaFeAsO.
A sample series containing different amounts of dissolved Ru were analyzed by high-resolution and high-intensity neutron powder diffraction down to 10 K in. Authors observed a huge change of both structural and magnetic properties and draw a phase diagram for the La(Fe1-xMnx)AsO system. This phase diagram clearly evidences that the structural transition is not driven by magnetic degree of freedom (a still debated issue in the field of Fe-based superconductors). Moreover, the peculiar effects observed in these system are ascribed to the strong Hund’s coupling that characterizes the substituting Mn2+ ions (a 3d5 species), yielding a highly stable electronic configuration.
