Magnetic Excitations in Transition-metal Oxides Studied by Inelastic Neutron Scattering

摘要

Inelastic neutron scattering using a triple axis spectrometer is a very efficient tool to analyze magnetic excitations. We will discuss several recent experiments on transition-metal oxides where orbital degrees of freedom play an important role. Different kinds of experimental techniques including longitudinal and spherical polarization analysis were used in order to determine not only magnon frequencies but also polarization vectors. In layered ruthenates bands of different orbital character contribute to the magnetic excitations which are of both, ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic, character. The orbital dependent magnetic excitations seem to play different roles in the superconducting pairing as well as in the metamagnetism . In manganates the analysis of the magnon dispersion in the charge and orbital ordered phase yields direct insight into the microscopic coupling of orbital and magnetic degrees of freedom and helps understanding, how the switching between metallic and insulating phases in manganates may occur. In multiferroic TbMnO3 the combination of our polarized neutron scattering results with the infrared measurements identifies a soft collective excitation of hybridized magnon-phonon character.