We have investigated anomalous Hall effect and magnetoresistance in a noncentrosymmetric itinerant magnet Cr$_{11}$Ge$_{19}$. While the temperature- and magnetic-field-dependent anomalous Hall conductivity is just proportional to the magnetization above 30 K, it is more enhanced in the lower temperature region. The magnitude of negative magnetoresistance begins to increase toward low temperature around 30 K. The anisotropic magnetoresistance emerges at similar temperature. Because there is no anomaly in the temperature dependence of magnetization around 30 K, the origin of these observations in transport properties is ascribed to some electronic structure with the energy scale of 30 K. We speculate this is caused by the spin splitting due to breaking of spatial inversion symmetry.
The noncentrosymmetric ferromagnet Cr11Ge19 has been investigated by electrical transport, AC and DC magnetization, heat capacity, x-ray diffraction, resonant ultrasound spectroscopy, and first principles electronic structure calculations. Complex itinerant ferromagnetism in this material is indicated by nonlinearity in conventional Arrott plots, unusual behavior of AC susceptibility, and a weak heat capacity anomaly near the Curie temperature (88 K). The inclusion of spin wave excitations was found to be important in modeling the low temperature heat capacity. The temperature dependence of the elastic moduli and lattice constants, including negative thermal expansion along the c axis at low temperatures, indicate strong magneto-elastic coupling in this system. Calculations show strong evidence for itinerant ferromagnetism and suggest a noncollinear ground state may be expected.
We have investigated the effect of Ge-substitution to the magnetic ordering in the B20 itinerant chiral magnet MnSi prepared by melting and annealing under ambient pressure. From metallurgical survey, the solubility limit of Ge was found to be $x=0.144(5)$ with annealing temperature $T_mathrm{an} = 1073$ K. Magnetization measurements on MnSi$_{1-x}$Ge$_x$ samples show that the helical ordering temperature $T_{mathrm{c}}$ increases rapidly in the low-$x$ range, whereas it becomes saturated at higher concentration $x>~0.1$. The Ge substitution also increases both the saturation magnetization $M_mathrm{s}$ and the critical field to the fully polarized state $H_mathrm{c2}$. In contrast to the saturation behavior of $T_mathrm{c}$, those parameters increase linearly up to the highest Ge concentration investigated. In the temperature-magnetic field phase diagram, we found enlargement of the skyrmion phase region for large $x$ samples. We, furthermore, observed the non-linear behavior of helical modulation vector $k$ as a function of Ge concentration, which can be described qualitatively using the mean field approximation.
We have investigated the magnetic and charge transport properties of single crystals of Nowotney Chimney Ladder compound Cr$_{11}$Ge$_{19}$ and mapped out a comprehensive phase diagram reflecting the complicated interplay between the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction, the dipolar interaction, and the magnetic anisotropy. We have identified a set of interesting magnetic phases and attributed a finite topological Hall effect to the recently discovered bi-skyrmion phase. These data also suggest the existence of an anti-skyrmion state at finite fields for temperatures just below the magnetic ordering temperature, $T_c$, as indicated by a distinct change in sign of the topological Hall effect. Above $T_c$, we discovered a region of enhanced magnetic response corresponding to a disordered phase likely existing near the ferromagnetic critical point under small magnetic fields. Strong spin chirality fluctuations are demonstrated by the large value of the topological Hall resistivity persisting up to 1 T which is most likely due to the existence of the DM interaction. We argue that changes to the topological Hall effect correspond to different topological spin textures that are controlled by magnetic dipolar and DM interactions that vary in importance with temperature.
Understanding the role of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) has been crucial to controlling magnetic anisotropy in magnetic multilayer films. It has been shown that electronic structure can be altered via interface SOC by varying the superlattice structure, resulting in spontaneous magnetization perpendicular or parallel to the plane. In lieu of magnetic thin films, we study the similarly anisotropic helimagnet Cr$_{1/3}$NbS$_2$, where the spin polarization direction, controlled by the applied magnetic field, can modify the electronic structure. As a result, the direction of spin polarization can modulate the density of states, and in turn affect the in-plane electrical conductivity. In Cr$_{1/3}$NbS$_2$, we found an enhancement of in-plane conductivity when the spin polarization is out-of-plane, as compared to in-plane spin polarization. This is consistent with the increase of density of states near the Fermi energy at the same spin configuration, found from first principles calculations. We also observe unusual field dependence of the Hall signal in the same temperature range. This is unlikely to originate from the non-collinear spin texture, but rather further indicates strong dependence of electronic structure on spin orientation relative to the plane.
Chiral nematic liquid crystals sometimes form blue phases characterized by spirals twisting in different directions. By combining model calculations with neutron-scattering experiments, we show that the magnetic analogue of blue phases does form in the chiral itinerant magnet MnSi in a large part of the phase diagram. The properties of this blue phase explain a number of previously reported puzzling features of MnSi such as partial magnetic order and a two-component specific-heat and thermal-expansion anomaly at the magnetic transition.