Dislocation-induced spin tunneling in Mn-12 acetate

Abstract

Comprehensive theory of quantum spin relaxation in Mn-12 acetate crystals is developed, that takes into account imperfections of the crystal structure and is based upon the generalization of the Landau-Zener effect for incoherent tunneling from excited energy levels. It is shown that linear dislocations at plausible concentrations provide the transverse anisotropy which is the main source of tunneling in Mn-12. Local rotations of the easy axis due to dislocations result in a transverse magnetic field generated by the field applied along the c-axis of the crystal, which explains the presence of odd tunneling resonances. Long-range deformations due to dislocations produce a broad distribution of tunnel splittings. The theory predicts that at subkelvin temperatures the relaxation curves for different tunneling resonances can be scaled onto a single master curve. The magnetic relaxation in the thermally activated regime follows the stretched-exponential law with the exponent depending on the field, temperature, and concentration of defects.