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Abstract Altermagnets are a novel class of magnetic materials, where magnetic order is staggered both in coordinate and momentum space. The metallic rutile oxide RuO2, long believed to be a textbook Pauli paramagnet, recently emerged as a putative workhorse altermagnet when resonant X-ray and neutron scattering studies reported nonzero magnetic moments and long-range collinear order. While some experiments seem consistent with altermagnetism, magnetic order in RuO2 remains controversial. We show that RuO2 is nonmagnetic, both in bulk and thin film. Muon spectroscopy complemented by density-functional theory finds at most 1.14 × 10−4 μ B/Ru in bulk and at most 7.5 × 10−4 μ B/Ru in 11 nm epitaxial films, at our spectrometers’ detection limit, and dramatically smaller than previously reported neutron results that were used to rationalize altermagnetic behavior. Our own neutron diffraction measurements on RuO2 single crystals identify multiple scattering as the source for the false signal in earlier studies.

Abstract Materials properties are determined by their compositions and structures. In ABO3 oxides different cation orderings lead to mainly perovskite‐ or corundum like derivatives with exciting physical properties. Sometimes, a material can be stabilized in more than one structural modification, providing a unique opportunity to explore structure‐properties relationship. Here, CoVO3 obtained in both ilmenite‐(CoVO3‐I) and LiNbO3‐type (CoVO3‐II) polymorphs at moderate (8–12 GPa) and high pressures (22 GPa), respectively are presented. Their distinctive cation distributions affect drastically the magnetic properties as CoVO3‐II shows a cluster‐glass behavior while CoVO3‐I hosts a honeycomb zigzag magnetic structure in the cobalt network. First principles calculations show that the influence of vanadium is crucial for CoVO3‐I, although it is previously considered as non‐magnetic in a dimerized spin‐singlet state. Contrarily, CoVO3‐II shows two independent interpenetrating antiferromagnetic Co‐ and ferromagnetic V‐hcp sublattices, which intrinsically frustrate any possible magnetic order. CoVO3‐II is also remarkable as the first oxide crystallizing with the LiNbO3‐type structure where both metals contain free d electrons. CoVO3 polymorphs pinpoint therefore as well to a much broader phase field of high‐pressure A‐site Cobaltites.

The antiferromagnetic phase transition of the heavy-fermion system Ce(Cu1−xCox)2Ge2 for x = 0.05 and 0.2, showing up in specific heat, magnetic susceptibility, and muon spin relaxation (μSR) data, has been further investigated. The neutron diffraction (ND) results show that Co-doping drastically reduces the moment size of Ce, without a qualitative change in the magnetic structure of the undoped compound CeCu2Ge2. An incommensurate magnetic propagation vector k = (0.2852, 0.2852, 0.4495) with a cycloidal magnetic structure with a Ce moment of 0.55 μB in the ab-plane has been observed for x = 0.05. Although for x = 0.2 the specific heat and magnetic susceptibility data reflect a phase transition with a broad peak and the muon relaxation rate shows a sharp peak at T = 0.9 K, our ND data dismiss the possibility of a long-range magnetic ordering down to 50 mK. The ND data, along with previously reported results for x = 0.2, are interpreted in terms of the reduced ordered state magnetic moments of the Ce3+ ion by Kondo screening and the presence of dynamical short-range magnetic correlations.

Quantum spin liquids have magnetic moments that do not form magnetic order even as the temperature approaches zero, leading to the dominance of quantum fluctuations. Chillal et al. present evidence that the hyper-hyperkagome lattice of PbCuTe2O6 hosts a three-dimensional quantum spin liquid.