We use ultrafast x-ray and electron diffraction to disentangle spin-lattice coupling of granular FePt in the time domain. The reduced dimensionality of single-crystalline FePt nanoparticles leads to strong coupling of magnetic order and a highly anisotropic three-dimensional lattice motion characterized by a- and b-axis expansion and c-axis contraction. The resulting increase of the FePt lattice tetragonality, the key quantity determining the energy barrier between opposite FePt magnetization orientations, persists for tens of picoseconds. These results suggest a novel approach to laser-assisted magnetic switching in future data storage applications.
Recently, a layered ferroelectric CuInP2Se6 was shown to exhibit domain walls with locally enhanced piezoresponse - a striking departure from the observations of nominally zero piezoresponse in most ferroelectrics. Although it was proposed that such bright domain walls are phase-boundaries between ferri- and antiferroelectrically ordered regions of the materials, the physical mechanisms behind the existence and response of these boundaries remain to be understood. Here, using Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire phenomenology combined with four sub-lattices model, we describe quantitatively the bright-contrast and dark-contrast domain boundaries between the antiferroelectric, ferroelectric or ferrielectric long-range ordered phases in a layered ferroelectric-antiferroelectric ferroics, such as CuInP2(S1-ySey)6
Spin polarized two-dimensional electronic states have been previously observed on metallic surface alloys with giant Rashba splitting and on the surface of topological insulators. We study the surface band structure of these systems, in a unified manner, by exploiting recent results of k.p theory. The model suggests a different way to address the effect of anisotropy in Rashba systems. Changes in the surface band structure of various Rashba compounds can be captured by a single effective parameter which quantifies the competition between the Rashba effect and the hexagonal warping of the constant energy contours. The same model provides a unified phenomenological description of the surface states belonging to materials with topologically trivial and non-trivial band structures.
A phenomenological equation called Landau-Lifshitz-Baryakhtar (LLBar) equation, which could be viewed as the combination of Landau-Lifshitz (LL) equation and an extra exchange damping term, was derived by Baryakhtar using Onsagers relations. We interpret the origin of this exchange damping as nonlocal damping by linking it to the spin current pumping. The LLBar equation is investigated numerically and analytically for the spin wave decay and domain wall motion. Our results show that the lifetime and propagation length of short-wavelength magnons in the presence of nonlocal damping could be much smaller than those given by LL equation. Furthermore, we find that both the domain wall mobility and the Walker breakdown field are strongly influenced by the nonlocal damping.
In this paper we study the switching properties of the dynamics of magnetic moments, that interact with an elastic medium. To do so we construct a Hamiltonian framework, that can take into account the dynamics in phase space of the variables that describe the magnetic moments in a consistent way. It is convenient to describe the magnetic moments as bilinears of anticommuting variables that are their own conjugates. However, we show how it is possible to avoid having to deal directly with the anticommuting variables themselves, only using them to deduce non-trivial constraints on the magnetoelastic couplings. We construct the appropriate Poisson bracket and a geometric integration scheme, that is symplectic in the extended phase space and that allows us to study the switching properties of the magnetization, that are relevant for applications, for the case of a toy model for antiferromagnetic NiO, under external stresses. In the absence of magnetoelastic coupling, we recover the results reported in the literature and in our previous studies. In the presence of the magnetoelastic coupling, the characteristic oscillations of the mechanical system have repercussions on the Neel order parameter dynamics. This is particularly striking for the spin accumulation which is more than doubled by the coupling to the strain ; here as well, the mechanical oscillations are reflected on the magnetic dynamics. As a consequence of such a stress induced strain, the switching time of the magnetization is slightly faster and the amplitude of the magnetization enhanced.
A phenomenological thermodynamic potential was constructed based on the symmetry analysis and property characterization of bulk DyCo2. An eight-order polynomial of Landau expansion was employed to describe the thermodynamic behavior of DyCo2. Several properties were reproduced including ferromagnetic transition temperature, magnetization curve, temperature dependence of magnetization. The transition behavior was analyzed via the thermodynamic potential. The Landau phenomenological thermodynamic model predicts the correct metamagnetic transition near the Curie temperature.