Magnetic properties of the 6H perovskite Ba_{3}Fe_{2}TeO_{9}$ (original) (raw)

A polycrystalline sample of Ba 3 Fe 2 TeO 9 having the 6H perovskite structure has been prepared in a solid-state reaction and studied by a combination of electron microscopy, Mössbauer spectroscopy, magnetometry, X-ray diffraction and neutron diffraction. Partial ordering of Fe 3+ and Te 6+ cations occurs over the six-coordinate sites; the corner-sharing octahedra are predominantly occupied by the former and the face-sharing octahedra by a 1:1 mixture of the two. On cooling through the temperature range 18 < T/K < 295 an increasing number of spins join an antiferromagnetic backbone running through the structure while the remainder show complex relaxation effects. At 3 K an antiferromagnetic phase and a spin glass coexist.