Structural and magnetic characterisation of the novel spin frustrated double perovskite Sr2ScMoO6

•The novel perovskite Sr2ScMoO6 has been synthesised.•Disorder of the Mo5+ and Sc3+ cations is observed.•There is no evidence of a magnetic transition down to 6 K.•There is likely frustrated short range magnetic order or spin liquid behaviour.

A novel Mo5+ double perovskite, Sr2ScMoO6, has been synthesised. This material crystallises in the tetragonal I4/m symmetry space group and considerable cation disorder between Sc3+ and Mo5+ is observed. Magnetic susceptibility measurements show no evidence of a magnetic transition down to 6 K and no evidence of the valence bond glass state previously reported for A2YMoO6 (A=Ba, Sr). The inverse susceptibility data cannot be fit to the Curie–Weiss law at any temperature range between 6 and 300 K. This deviation from Curie–Weiss law suggests that strong antiferromagnetic correlations are still present in Sr2ScMoO6.

Graphical abstractA novel double perovskite Sr2ScMoO6 has been synthesised which has corner sharing MoO6 and ScO6 octahedra. The Sr2+ cations reside in the cavities and exhibit anisotropic thermal motion. There is no evidence of magnetic order down to 6 K.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide