No Arabic abstract
Soft resonant x-ray Bragg diffraction (SRXD) at the Ho M$_{4,5}$ edges has been used to study Ho $4f$ multipoles in the combined magnetic and orbitally ordered phase of HoB$_2$C$_2$. A full description of the energy dependence for both $sigma$ and $pi$ incident x-rays at two different azimuthal angles, as well as the ratio $I_sigma/I_pi$ as a function of azimuthal angle for a selection of energies, allows a determination of the higher order multipole moments of rank 1 (dipole) to 6 (hexacontatetrapole). The Ho 4f multipole moments have been estimated, indicating a dominant hexadecapole (rank 4) order with an almost negligible influence from either the dipole or the octupole magnetic terms. The analysis incorporates both the intra-atomic magnetic and quadrupolar interactions between the 3d core and 4f valence shells as well as the interference of contributions to the scattering that behave differently under time reversal. Comparison of SRXD, neutron diffraction and non resonant x-ray diffraction shows that the magnetic and quadrupolar order parameter are distinct. The $(0 0 1/2)$ component of the magnetic order exhibits a Brillouin type increase below the orbital ordering temperature T$_Q$, while the quadrupolar order increases more sharply. We conclude the quadrupolar interaction is strong, but quadrupolar order only occurs when the magnetic order gives rise to a quasi doublet ground state, which results in a lock-in of the orbitals at T$_Q$.
We studied the stripe phase of La1.8Sr0.2NiO4 using neutron diffraction, resonant soft x-ray diffraction (RSXD) at the Ni L2,3 edges, and resonant x-ray diffraction (RXD) at the Ni K threshold. Differences in the q-space resolution of the different techniques have to be taken into account for a proper evaluation of diffraction intensities associated with the spin and charge order superstructures. We find that in the RSXD experiment the spin and charge order peaks show the same temperature dependence. In the neutron experiment by contrast, the spin and charge signals follow quite different temperature behaviors. We infer that fluctuating magnetic order contributes considerably to the magnetic RSXD signal and we suggest that this result may open an interesting experimental approach to search for fluctuating order in other systems by comparing RSXD and neutron diffraction data.
Strong resonant enhancements of the charge-order and spin-order superstructure-diffraction intensities in La1.8Sr0.2NiO4 are observed when x-ray energies in the vicinity of the Ni L2,3 absorption edges are used. The pronounced photon-energy and polarization dependences of these diffraction intensities allow for a critical determination of the local symmetry of the ordered spin and charge carriers. We found that not only the antiferromagnetic order but also the charge-order superstructure resides within the NiO2 layers; the holes are mainly located on in-plane oxygens surrounding a Ni2+ site with the spins coupled antiparallel in close analogy to Zhang-Rice singlets in the cuprates.
Resonant Bragg diffraction of soft, circularly polarized x-rays has been used to observe directly the temperature dependence of chiral-order melting in a motif of Mn ions in terbium manganate. The underlying mechanism uses the b-axis component of a cycloid, which vanishes outside the polar phase. Melting is witnessed by the first and second harmonics of a cycloid, and we explain why the observed temperature dependence is different in the two harmonics. Our direct observation of melting is supported by a solid foundation of evidence, derived from extensive studies of the azimuthal-angle dependence of intensities with both linear and circular polarization.
Resonant x-ray diffraction performed at the $rm L_{II}$ and $rm L_{III}$ absorption edges of Ru has been used to investigate the magnetic and orbital ordering in Ca$_2$RuO$_4$ single crystals. A large resonant enhancement due to electric dipole $2pto 4d$ transitions is observed at the wave-vector characteristic of antiferromagnetic ordering. Besides the previously known antiferromagnetic phase transition at $rm T_{N}=110$ K, an additional phase transition, between two paramagnetic phases, is observed around 260 K. Based on the polarization and azimuthal angle dependence of the diffraction signal, this transition can be attributed to orbital ordering of the Ru $t_{2g}$ electrons. The propagation vector of the orbital order is inconsistent with some theoretical predictions for the orbital state of Ca$_2$RuO$_4$.
We compare for Ho metal the x-ray absorption spectrum and the resonant soft x-ray diffraction spectra obtained at the $3d_{5/2} to 4f$ ($M_5$) resonance for the magnetic 1st and 2nd order diffraction peaks $(0,0,tau)$ and $(0,0,2tau)$ with the result of an atomic multiplet calculation. We find a good agreement between experiment and simulation giving evidence that this kind of simulation is well suited to quantitatively analyze resonant soft x-ray diffraction data from correlated electron systems.