Appearance of the spin-Peierls phase under pressure in Cu1-xMgxGeO3 -: art. no. 024423

The effect of pressure is studied on highly Mg-doped CuGeO3, which at ambient pressure shows an antiferromagnetic transition but no spin-Peierls transition. The magnetic susceptibility under pressure was measured; the broad maximum around 60 K shifts to lower temperatures and the spin-Peierls (SP) transition reappears. The temperature-concentration phase diagram at various pressures was constructed and it was found that the SP phase region enlarges with pressure. These results mean that the enhancement of frustration due to nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor exchange interactions overcomes the effect of interchain interaction, and that the spin-Peierls phase is more stabilized than the paramagnetic or antiferromagnetic phases. In the temperature-pressure-concentration phase diagram, the compositional phase transition between the dimerized-antiferromagnetic phase and the uniform-antiferromagnetic phase is second order at P>0.2 GPa, but first order at P<0.2 GPa. We propose that the change in order of this transition is also due to enhancement of the frustration. We show an example of frustration effects in a one-dimensional quantum spin system.