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Updated: Aug 19, 2026
Methods of Ex Situ and In Situ Investigations of Structural Transformations: The Case of Crystallization of Metallic Glasses
Published on: June 7, 2018
Orbital freezing and orbital glass state in FeCr2S4
R Fichtl1, V Tsurkan, P Lunkenheimer
1Experimental Physics V, Center for Electronic Correlations and Magnetism, University of Augsburg, 86135 Augsburg, Germany.
Abstract:
Low-temperature specific heat measurements and dielectric spectroscopy have been performed on polycrystalline and single-crystalline FeCr2S4, the single crystals showing a transition into a low-temperature orbital glass phase. The freezing of the orbital moments is revealed by a glasslike specific heat anomaly and by a clear relaxational behavior of the dielectric permittivity, exhibiting several hallmark features of glassy dynamics. The orbital relaxation dynamics continuously slows down over six decades in time, before at the lowest temperatures the glass transition becomes suppressed by quantum tunneling.
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