Low-temperature phases of the pyrochlore compound Tb2Ti2O7 -: art. no. 132413

Low-temperature magnetic states of the pyrochlore compound Tb2Ti2O7 with a geometrical frustration have been determined by measuring the specific heat, the susceptibility, and the residual magnetization of single-crystal samples. The moments of the lowest doublet of the Tb3+ ions set into a short-range ordering below about 2 K and show a maximum of the specific heat at T(sr)approximate to0.7 K. At T-c=0.37 K, we observed a sharp peak of the specific heat which suggests that the second-order transition occurs. The static and the ac susceptibilities show another transition into a spin-glass or cluster-glass state below T-g=0.2 K. In the temperature range between 1.5 and 0.2 K, a residual magnetization was observed. The time dependencies of the residual magnetization and the dissipation of the ac susceptibility suggest existence of metastable states with a distribution of the relaxation times.