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Motivated by the presence of an unquenched orbital angular momentum in CoO, a team at Chalk River, including a recently hired research officer Roger Cowley, performed the first inelastic neutron scattering experiments on the classic Mott insulator [Sakurai et al 1968 Phys. Rev. 167 510]. Despite identifying two magnon modes at the zone boundary, the team was unable to parameterise the low energy magnetic excitation spectrum below T N using conventional pseudo-bosonic approaches, instead achieving only qualitative agreement. It would not be for another 40 years that Roger, now at Oxford and motivated by the discovery of the high- T c cuprate superconductors [Bednorz and Muller 1986 Z. Phys. B 64 189], would make another attempt at the parameterisation of the magnetic excitation spectrum that had previously alluded him at the start of his career. Upon his return to CoO, Roger found a system embroiled in controversy, with some of its most fundamental parameters still remaining undetermined. Faced with such a formidable task, Roger performed a series of inelastic neutron scattering experiments in the early 2010s on both CoO and a magnetically dilute structural analogue Mg 0.97 Co 0.03 O. These experiments would prove instrumental in the determination of both single-ion [Cowley et al 2013 Phys. Rev. B 88 205117] and cooperative magnetic parameters [Sarte et al 2018 Phys. Rev. B 98 024415] for CoO. Both these sets of parameters would eventually be used in a spin-orbit exciton model [Sarte et al 2019 Phys. Rev. B 100 075143], developed by his longtime friend and collaborator Bill Buyers, to successfully parameterise the complex spectrum that both measured at Chalk River almost 50 years prior. The story of CoO is of one that has come full circle, one filled with both spectacular failures and intermittent, yet profound, little victories., (Creative Commons Attribution license.)

Magnetic monopoles are hypothesised elementary particles connected by Dirac strings that behave like infinitely thin solenoids (Dirac 1931 Proc. R. Soc. A 133 60). Despite decades of searching, free magnetic monopoles and their Dirac strings have eluded experimental detection, although there is substantial evidence for deconfined magnetic monopole quasiparticles in spin ice materials (Castelnovo et al 2008 Nature 326 411). Here we report the detection of a hierarchy of unequally-spaced magnetic excitations via high resolution inelastic neutron spectroscopic measurements on the quantum spin ice candidate [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text]. These excitations are well-described by a simple model of monopole pairs bound by a linear potential (Coldea et al Science 327 177) with an effective tension of 0.642(8) K [Formula: see text] at 1.65 K. The success of the linear potential model suggests that these low energy magnetic excitations are direct spectroscopic evidence for the confinement of magnetic monopole quasiparticles in the quantum spin ice candidate [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text].

Non-conservation of magnetic neutron scattering from the six-layer hexagonal perovskite Ba3CaRu2O9 on cooling reveals that (Ru(5+))2 dimers form nonmagnetic spin-singlet ground states. This is in contrast to Ba3BRu2O9 (B=Co or Ni) analogues which display long range spin ordered ground states containing antiferromagnetic (Ru(5+))2 dimers (Lightfoot and Battle 1990 J. Solid State Chem. 89 174). Dimer formation is weakly coupled to the lattice, resulting in an excess [101] microstrain broadening of diffraction peaks at low temperatures. Non-conservation of magnetic neutron scattering is also observed around the charge ordering transition in Ba3NaRu2O9 showing that the ground state structure is coupled to spin-singlet formation in charge ordered Ru2O9 dimers.

Zero field muon spin relaxation (ZF-μSR) has been used to study the magnetic properties of the underdoped giant magnetoresistive ruthenocuprates RuSr(2)Nd(1.8-x)Y (0.2)Ce(x)Cu(2)O(10-δ) (x = 0.95, 0.80). The magnetoresistance (MR) is defined so that MR = ((ρ(H)-ρ(0))/ρ(0)) and the giant magnetoresistive ruthenocuprates RuSr(2)Nd(1.8-x)Y(0.2)Ce(x)Cu(2)O(10-δ) exhibit a large reduction in electronic resistivity upon application of a magnetic field. The ZF-μSR results show a gradual loss of initial asymmetry A(0) at the ruthenium spin transition temperature, T(Ru). At the same time the electronic relaxation rate, λ, shows a gradual increase with decreasing temperature below T(Ru). These results have been interpreted as evidence for Cu spin cluster formation below T(Ru). These magnetically ordered clusters grow as the temperature is decreased thus causing the initial asymmetry to decrease slowly. Giant magnetoresistance is observed over a wide temperature range in the materials studied and the magnitude increases as the temperature is reduced from T(Ru) to 4 K which suggests a relation between Cu spin cluster size and |-MR|.