Eur. Phys. J. B 38, 13-18 (2004)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2004-00093-1

Magnetic properties of the antiferromagnetic site-disordered vanadate Zn₂FeV₃O₁₁

¹ Physics Department, National Technical University, 157 80 Athens, Greece
² Department of Physics, University of Athens, 157 84 Zografou, Athens, Greece
³ Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, 02-668 Warsaw, Poland
⁴ Frank Laboratory of Neutron Physics, JINR, 141 980 Dubna, Russia
⁵ Institute of Physics, Technical University of Szczecin, 71-065 Szczecin, Poland
⁶ Institute of Chemistry, Technical University of Szczecin, 71-065 Szczecin, Poland

Corresponding author: ^a ngouskos@cc.uoa.gr

Received: 3 October 2003
Revised: 23 December 2003
Published online: 20 April 2004

Abstract

The magnetic properties of the Zn₂FeV₃O ₁₁vanadate, characterized by a disordered distribution of diamagnetic Zn²⁺ and high-spin Fe³⁺ ions, are studied using magnetization and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements. The dc susceptibility reveals antiferromagnetic interactions between Fe³⁺ spins with a Curie-Weiss temperature  K, followed by a transition to a frozen, spin-glass-like state at low temperature T_f  K, indicating an inhomogeneous magnetic ground state. The temperature variation of the EPR parameters confirms the antiferromagnetic coupling of Fe³⁺  spins at high temperatures, while a distinct divergence is observed at  K. This behavior is attributed to the inherent magnetic inhomogeneity of the system due to antiferromagnetic spin clusters.