Evidence of weak ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interaction at low temperature in Pb(Fe2/3W1/3)O3 multiferroic

Abstract Disordered magnetoelectric Pb(Fe 2/3 W 1/3 )O 3 (PFW) was synthesized through columbite solid state reaction method in pure perovskite phase. Saturation magnetization of 0.013 μ B /f. u. was observed at 5 K, with a clear opening in the magnetic hysteresis loop around the origin. Temperature dependent magnetic susceptibility (χ) measurements revealed two different magnetic orderings, T N1 ∼ 350 K and another cusp, T N2 below 20 K. The neutron diffraction studies were carried out at different temperatures to understand the existence of the controversial T N2 . The variation in the magnetic peak intensity clearly show that while decreasing temperature from 300 K to 2 K the intensity of the magnetic peak increases. This observation along with the observation of hysteresis loop at temperature below 20 K and the cusp in magnetic susceptibility data, confirms the existence of interaction between weak ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism rather than spin-glassy nature or magnetic clusters.