High pressure μ SR study on cobalt oxide spinel

The magnetic nature of the cobalt oxide spinel Co 3O 4 has been studied under hydrostatic pressure up to 1.34 GPa by means of zero field (ZF) and weak transverse field (wTF) μ + SR techniques using a polycrystalline sample. At ambient pressure, Co 3O 4 enters into an antiferromagnetic (AF) phase below 30 K, as evidenced by two distinct spontaneous muon-spin precessions in its ZF spectrum. wTF measurements show that AF transition temperature ( T N ) clearly increases with increasing pressure. Since only the Co 2 + ions at the tetrahedral site (A site) in the spinel lattice are magnetic, this indicates that the AF interaction between the Co 2 + ions at A site is enhanced by applying pressure through the decrease in the distance between the adjacent A-site ions. On the other hand, ZF measurements show that the frequency of spontaneous muon-spin precession is almost independent of pressure. This could suggest that the AF structure is not altered by pressure at least up to 1.34 GPa.