Effects of Disorder and Low Dimensionality on Frozen Dynamics in Ca3Co2-xMnxO6

Complex oxides represent an intersection of play grounds for the existence of exciting new fundamental physics and materials with potential technological implications. The realization of many exciting properties of these systems rely on the coupling of electronic, structural and magnetic degrees of freedom. Additionally, competing interactions within each type of coupling discussed previously lead to theoretically diverse ground states, which under the application of an external perturbation, can be tuned and probed.;Ca3Co2-xMnxO6 represent a quasi-one dimensional Ising spin chain system oriented in an antiferromagnetic triangular lattice. The exotic behavior of the undoped compound Ca3Co 2O6 has inspired work on continuing the fundamental understanding of frustrated magnetic systems. Through chemical doping of Manganese ions, the magnetic properties, namely the exotic spin glass like behavior can be enhanced for a modest doping range of x<0.25. Beyond this limit the frozen electron dynamics are suppressed as perfect ionic order is approached at the x=1.0 composition. The emergence of a new magnetic phase that appears to be comping with the frozen electron dynamics may suggest that this phase and the frozen electron dynamics are competing magnetic phases.;The effects of particle dimensionality were probed through the application of varied calcining conditions as to attempt to observe the altering of magnetic properties, mainly the out of equilibrium magnetization plateaus observed in Ca3Co1.75 Mn0.25O6. It appears that within the particle sizes studied the magnetic behavior is highly robust, even considering the inclusion of ionic disorder.