Understanding the Magnetic Structure of Spin Glass Zinc Manganese Telluride

Zinc Manganese Telluride (Zn,Mn)Te has attracted interest as a dense spin glass system. To gain a better understanding of the local magnetic correlations and the transition into the spin glass state, we performed neutron diffraction experiments on a powder sample of Zn_0.5Mn_0.5Te. We observe strong magnetic diffuse scattering features that persist well above the freezing temperature. Unexpectedly, sharp magnetic Bragg peaks also develop at low temperature and coexist with the diffuse scattering, pointing to an unusual ground state supporting both short- and long-range magnetic correlations. We present an analysis of the magnetic structure of Zn_0.5Mn_0.5Te utilizing both the reciprocal space data and the real space magnetic pair distribution function. We also introduce an algorithm to filter out the Bragg peaks and isolate the diffuse scattering signal. The analysis clarifies the nature of the short- and long-range magnetic correlations in (Zn,Mn)Te and provides a template for similar studies of magnetic systems with complex and short-range correlations.