Magnetic structure in the ordered state of a new Nd-based pyrochlore

Rare-earth pyrochlore A2B2O7 have been found to be interesting materials in which a rich spectrum of magnetic phenomena have been observed. Variation of rare-earth ion in A sites can modulate the magnetic ground state due to rather different crystal-field ground states in the D3d local symmetry of A sites. Here, we have prepared a new Nd-pyrochlore Nd2ScTaO7. It is found that the "moment fragmentation" is robust to the highly disordered crystal-field environment in B-site mixing Nd2ScTaO7 reflected by the coexistence of long-range order and diffuse scattering in the ground state. Moreover, the magnetic structure is argued to be different from the all-in-all-out magetic structure. Therefore, we propose to verify the exact magnetic structure in this new Nd-pyrochlore which can help to understand more about the role of crystal-field ground state on the pyrochlore physics.