Materials Research Bulletin, Vol.46, No.5, 682-686, 2011
Cluster glass behaviour in Co-substituted double perovskite Ca2FeMoO6
The transport and magnetic properties of the double perovskite compounds Ca2Fe1-xCoxMoO6 (0.1 <= x <= 0.4) have been explored through resistivity [rho(T)], dc magnetisation [M(H, T)] and ac susceptibility [chi(T, f)] measurements. Introduction of Co increases the lattice volume implying the divalent nature of cobalt in this system. For all the samples, rho(T) behaviour over the temperature range (25-273 K) can be adequately described by considering possible disorder-enhanced electron-electron interaction effect as well as spin-wave contribution. Our results reveal that with the increase of Co concentration, the ferromagnetic Curie temperatures (T-C) gradually reduced due to the incorporation of antiferromagnetic Co2+-Mo6+ pairs replacing ferromagnetic Fe3+-Mo5+ pairs. A cluster-glass like behaviour is also observed in the system due to the presence of highly spin-disordered regions. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.