Anti-site disorder driven short-range order and canted antiferromagnetism in inverse spinel LiNiVO4

Frustration driven short-range magnetic correlations/fluctuations in quantum materials usually host exotic ground states like spin glass, low dimensional magnetism and quantum spin liquid. In this context, different members of spinel (both normal and inverse) family have gained enormous interest and an inverse spinel vanadate, LiNiVO4, seems to be an interesting candidate. Structural investigations reveal that unlike usual cation ordering, Ni and Li ions are randomly distributed at octahedral sites and results in reduced magnetic frustration. Further, an additional anti-site disorder is present, as a small fraction of Ni ions occupies tetrahedral sites. Magnetic susceptibility and heat capacity studies show that short-range magnetic correlations develop below 30 K, followed by a canted antiferromagnetism below 2.2 K. Different competing magnetic interactions due to the presence of disorder and reduced magnetic frustration result in the short-range ordering as well as canted antiferromagnetism in LiNiVO4.