No Arabic abstract
Recent experiments showed that Co undergoes a phase transition from ferromagnetic hcp phase to non-magnetic fcc one around 100 GPa. Since the transition is of first order, a certain region of co-existence of the two phases is present. By means of textit{ab initio} calculations, we found that the hcp phase itself undergoes a series of electronic topological transitions (ETTs), which affects both elastic and magnetic properties of the material. Most importantly, we propose that the sequence of ETTs lead to the stabilisation of a non-collinear spin arrangement in highly compressed hcp Co. Details of this non-collinear magnetic state and the interatomic exchange parameters that are connected to it, are presented here.
We discover that hcp phases of Fe and Fe0.9Ni0.1 undergo an electronic topological transition at pressures of about 40 GPa. This topological change of the Fermi surface manifests itself through anomalous behavior of the Debye sound velocity, c/a lattice parameter ratio and Mossbauer center shift observed in our experiments. First-principles simulations within the dynamic mean field approach demonstrate that the transition is induced by many-electron effects. It is absent in one-electron calculations and represents a clear signature of correlation effects in hcp Fe.
The pressure induced bcc to hcp transition in Fe has been investigated via ab-initio electronic structure calculations. It is found by the disordered local moment (DLM) calculations that the temperature induced spin fluctuations result in the decrease of the energy of Burgers type lattice distortions and softening of the transverse $N$-point $TA_1$ phonon mode with $[bar{1}10]$ polarization. As a consequence, spin disorder in an system leads to the increase of the amplitude of atomic displacements. On the other hand, the exchange coupling parameters obtained in our calculations strongly decrease at large amplitude of lattice distortions. This results in a mutual interrelation of structural and magnetic degrees of freedom leading to the instability of the bcc structure under pressure at finite temperature.
The nature of the interaction between magnetism and topology in magnetic topological semimetals remains mysterious, but may be expected to lead to a variety of novel physics. We present $ab$ $initio$ band calculations, electrical transport and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements on the magnetic semimetal EuAs$_3$, demonstrating a magnetism-induced topological transition from a topological nodal-line semimetal in the paramagnetic or the spin-polarized state to a topological massive Dirac metal in the antiferromagnetic (AFM) ground state at low temperature, featuring a pair of massive Dirac points, inverted bands and topological surface states on the (010) surface. Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations in the AFM state identify nonzero Berry phase and a negative longitudinal magnetoresistance ($n$-LMR) induced by the chiral anomaly, confirming the topological nature predicted by band calculations. When magnetic moments are fully polarized by an external magnetic field, an unsaturated and extremely large magnetoresistance (XMR) of $sim$ 2$times10^5$ % at 1.8 K and 28.3 T is observed, likely arising from topological protection. Consistent with band calculations for the spin-polarized state, four new bands in quantum oscillations different from those in the AFM state are discerned, of which two are topologically protected. Nodal-line structures at the $Y$ point in the Brillouin zone (BZ) are proposed in both the spin-polarized and paramagnetic states, and the latter is proven by ARPES. Moreover, a temperature-induced Lifshitz transition accompanied by the emergence of a new band below 3 K is revealed. These results indicate that magnetic EuAs$_3$ provides a rich platform to explore exotic physics arising from the interaction of magnetism with topology.
A description of non-collinear magnetism in the framework of spin-density functional theory is presented for the exact exchange energy functional which depends explicitly on two-component spinor orbitals. The equations for the effective Kohn-Sham scalar potential and magnetic field are derived within the optimized effective potential (OEP) framework. With the example of a magnetically frustrated Cr monolayer it is shown that the resulting magnetization density exhibits much more non-collinear structure than standard calculations. Furthermore, a time-dependent generalization of the non-collinear OEP method is well suited for an ab-initio description of spin dynamics. We also show that the magnetic moments of solids Fe, Co and Ni are well reproduced.
Interfaces between correlated complex oxides are promising avenues to realize new forms of magnetism that arise as a result of charge transfer, proximity effects and locally broken symmetries. We report upon the discovery of a non-collinear magnetic structure in superlattices of the ferromagnetic metallic oxide La2/3Sr1/3MnO3 (LSMO) and the correlated metal LaNiO3 (LNO). The exchange interaction between LSMO layers is mediated by the intervening LNO, such that the angle between the magnetization of neighboring LSMO layers varies in an oscillatory manner with the thickness of the LNO layer. The magnetic field, temperature, and spacer thickness dependence of the non-collinear structure are inconsistent with the bilinear and biquadratic interactions that are used to model the magnetic structure in conventional metallic multilayers. A model that couples the LSMO layers to a helical spin state within the LNO fits the observed behavior. We propose that the spin-helix results from the interaction between a spatially varying spin susceptibility within the LNO and interfacial charge transfer that creates localized Ni2+ states. This provides a new approach to engineering non-collinear spin textures in metallic oxide heterostructures that can be exploited in devices based on both spin and charge transport.