We report the results of a combined muon spin rotation and neutron scattering study on La2−xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) in the vicinity of the so-called 1/8-anomaly. Application of a magnetic field drives the system towards a magnetically ordered spin-density-wave state, which is fully developed at 1/8 doping. The results are discussed in terms of competition between antiferromagnetic and superconducting order parameters.

The thickness dependence of the helical antiferromagnetic ordering temperature T(N) was studied for thin Ho metal films by resonant magnetic soft x-ray and neutron diffraction. In contrast with the Curie temperature of ferromagnets, T(N) was found to decrease with film thickness d according to [T(N)(infinity)-T(N)(d)]/T(N)(d) proportional variant (d-d(0))(-lambda(')), where lambda(') is a phenomenological exponent and d(0) is of the order of the bulk magnetic period L(b). These observations are reproduced by mean-field calculations that suggest a linear relationship between d(0) and L(b) in long-period antiferromagnets.

The temperature dependence of the gapped triplet excitations (triplons) in the 2D Shastry-Sutherland quantum magnet SrCu 2 ðBO 3 Þ 2 is studied by means of inelastic neutron scattering. The excitation amplitude rapidly decreases as a function of temperature, while the integrated spectral weight can be explained by an isolated dimer model up to 10 K. Analyzing this anomalous spectral line shape in terms of damped harmonic oscillators shows that the observed damping is due to a two-component process: one component remains sharp and resolution limited while the second broadens. We explain the underlying mechanism through a simple yet quantitatively accurate model of correlated decay of triplons: an excited triplon is long lived if no thermally populated triplons are nearby but decays quickly if there are. The phenomenon is a direct consequence of frustration induced triplon localization in the Shastry-Sutherland lattice. Quantum spin systems display a wide range of intriguing many-body quantum effects. A particularly active field is the study of interacting dimer systems. Two antiferromagnetically coupled spins forming a dimer have a singlet ground state with an energy gap to excited triplet states. In extended systems where dimers couple to each other, the ground state often remains a spin singlet and gapped. The excitations are known as triplons and can be described in terms of quasiparticles as hard-core bosons [1][2][3][4]. Because of coupling between dimers, triplons usually become mobile and can hop to neighboring dimer sites. For particular cases, the thermodynamic finite temperature behavior of the mobility of these hard-core bosons has been treated using statistical models reproducing triplon band renormalization and damping observed in experiments [5][6][7][8][9]. In general, the increase of the thermal population of bosons produces an increased repulsion and a reduced mobility, which is observed as a reduction of the dispersion bandwidth. The theoretical treatment of finite temperature damping, reflecting the lifetime of the boson and the related spectral functions, remains an ongoing challenge [10][11][12][13].The compound SrCu 2 ðBO 3 Þ 2 constitutes an important example for testing our understanding of quantum spin systems, as it is a close realization of the frustrated but "exactly solvable" 2D Shastry-Sutherland model [14,15] (see Refs. [16,17] for a review). In SrCu 2 ðBO 3 Þ 2 , triplons are prevented from hopping already at zero temperature by frustrated interdimer interactions. Despite the strong (frustrated) coupling, the triplon dispersion is very shallow. Theoretical studies show that hopping is allowed only from the sixth order in the inter-to intradimer coupling ratio J 0 =J or in the presence of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) terms. It has, however, been shown that multiple triplons forming a bound state are more mobile than a single triplon due to correlated hopping processes, appearing already in second order in J 0 =J [16,18]. In high magnetic fields, triplons in SrCu 2 ðBO 3 Þ 2 crystalliz...

Structure and dynamics of silicon-oxygen pairs and their role in silicon self-diffusion in amorphous silicaNeutron reflectometry and isotope multilayers were used to investigate self-diffusion in covalent amorphous solids during isothermal annealing and its correlation to structural relaxation. Amorphous silicon nitride was chosen as a model system. Neutron reflectometry is a superior method to measure very low self-diffusivities, occurring in covalent solids, by applying only short time anneals. This allows one to determine time dependent changes of diffusivity over a broad temperature range before crystallization of the metastable solid occurs. The measured nitrogen diffusivities decrease by more than one order of magnitude during annealing between 950 and 1150°C, while at the same time also a decrease of the atomic density is observed. We interpret this behavior as a structural relaxation of the amorphous network structure that is governed by annihilation of interstitial-like defects.