No Arabic abstract
We present a systematic study of the ac susceptibility of the chiral magnet Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$Si with $x$ = 0.30 covering four orders of magnitude in frequencies from 0.1 Hz to 1 kHz, with particular emphasis to the pronounced history dependence. Characteristic relaxation times ranging from a few milliseconds to tens of seconds are observed around the skyrmion lattice A-phase, the helical-to-conical transition and in a region above $T_C$. The distribution of relaxation frequencies around the A-phase is broad, asymmetric and originates from multiple coexisting relaxation processes. The pronounced dependence of the magnetic phase diagram on the magnetic history and cooling rates as well as the asymmetric frequency dependence and slow dynamics suggest more complicated physical phenomena in Fe$_{0.7}$Co$_{0.3}$Si than in other chiral magnets.
We present a comprehensive and systematic magnetization and ac susceptibility study of Mn$_{1-x}$Fe$_{x}$Si over an extensive range of ten Fe concentrations between $x$ = 0 - 0.32. With increasing Fe substitution, the critical temperature decreases but the magnetic phase diagrams remain qualitatively unaltered for $x$ $leq$ $x^*$ $approx$ 0.11 with clear boundaries between the helical, conical, and skyrmion lattice phase as well as an enhanced precursor phase. A notably different behavior sets in for $x$ $=$ 0.11, 0.13 and 0.14, where certain characteristics of helimagnetic correlations persist, but without clear phase boundaries. Although a qualitative change already sets in at $x^*$, the transition temperature and spontaneous magnetization vanish only at $x_C$ = 0.17 where also the average magnetic interactions change sign. Although the Curie-Weiss temperature reaches -12~K for $x$ = 0.32, no signature of long-range magnetic order is found down to the lowest temperature, indicating a possible significant role for quantum fluctuations in these systems.
Small angle neutron scattering measurements on a bulk single crystal of the doped chiral magnet Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$Si with $x$=0.3 reveal a pronounced effect of the magnetic history and cooling rates on the magnetic phase diagram. The extracted phase diagrams are qualitatively different for zero and field cooling and reveal a metastable skyrmion lattice phase outside the A-phase for the latter case. These thermodynamically metastable skyrmion lattice correlations coexist with the conical phase and can be enhanced by increasing the cooling rate. They appear in a wide region of the phase diagram at temperatures below the $A$-phase but also at fields considerably smaller or higher than the fields required to stabilize the A-phase.
Monosilicides of 3d-metals frequently show a chiral magnetic ordering with the absolute configuration defined by the chirality of the crystal structure and the sign of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). Structural and magnetic chiralities are probed here for Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$Si series and their mutual relationship is found to be dependent on the chemical composition. The chirality of crystal structure was previously shown to be governed by crystal growth, and the value of the DMI is nearly the same for all monosilicides of Fe, Co and Mn. Our findings indicate that the sign of the DMI in Fe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$Si is controlled by the Co composition $x$, thus, opening a route towards controlled design of chiral spintronics devices.
We study the low-temperature electrical and thermal conductivity of CoSi and Co$_{1-x}$M$_x$Si alloys (M = Fe, Ni; $x leq$ 0.06). Measurements show that the low-temperature electrical conductivity of Co$_{1-x}$Fe$_{x}$Si alloys decreases at $x > $ 0.01 by an order of magnitude compared with that of pure CoSi. It was expected that both the lattice and electronic contributions to thermal conductivity would decrease in the alloys. However, our experimental results revealed that at temperatures below 20K the thermal conductivity of Fe- and Ni-containing alloys is several times larger than that of pure CoSi. We discuss possible mechanisms of the thermal conductivity enhancement. The most probable one is related to the dominant scattering of phonons by charge carriers. We propose a simple theoretical model that takes into account the complex semimetallic electronic structure of CoSi with nonequivalent valleys, and show that it explains well the increase of the lattice thermal conductivity with increasing disorder and the linear temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity in the Co$_{1-x}$Fe$_x$Si alloys below 20K.
The finite-temperature magnetic properties of Fe$_x$Pd$_{1-x}$ and Co$_x$Pt$_{1-x}$ alloys have been investigated. It is shown that the temperature-dependent magnetic behaviour of alloys, composed of originally magnetic and non-magnetic elements, cannot be described properly unless the coupling between magnetic moments at magnetic atoms (Fe,Co) mediated through the interactions with induced magnetic moments of non-magnetic atoms (Pd,Pt) is included. A scheme for the calculation of the Curie temperature ($T_C$) for this type of systems is presented which is based on the extended Heisenberg Hamiltonian with the appropriate exchange parameters $J_{ij}$ obtained from {em ab-initio} electronic structure calculations. Within the present study the KKR Greens function method has been used to calculate the $J_{ij}$ parameters. A comparison of the obtained Curie temperatures for Fe$_x$Pd$_{1-x}$ and Co$_x$Pt$_{1-x}$ alloys with experimental data shows rather good agreement.