Measurement of local magnetic fields in the CuO2 planes of CuBa2YCu2O7-delta superconductors.

A fully oxygenated Cu(1)Ba2YCu(2)2O7-delta sample having 0.167 at % of the Cu atoms replaced by enriched 57Fe was synthesized. As confirmed by 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy approximately 16% of the Fe atoms entered the superconducting Cu(2)O2 planes. Mössbauer spectra recorded at various temperatures between 77 and 373 K exhibited the presence of a weak magnetic hyperfine interaction in the Fe atoms entering the CuO2 planes. The nonzero internal field obtained from the Mössbauer data increased following a Brillouin-type behavior, from the estimated Néel-like temperature of approximately 400 K down to 96 K where it reached approximately 1.5 T. Upon further cooling below T_{c} the internal field decreased fast down to approximately 0.4 T at 77 K. The presence of the internal field is believed to be related to magnetic correlations among the CuO2-plane atoms, i.e., to reflect local antiferromagnetic coupling between the Cu atoms.