No Arabic abstract
Neutron scattering studies on powder and single crystals have provided new evidences for unconventional magnetism in Cu2Te2O5Cl2. The compound is built from tetrahedral clusters of S=1/2 Cu2+ spins located on a tetragonal lattice. Magnetic ordering, emerging at TN=18.2 K, leads to a very complex multi-domain, most likely degenerate, ground state, which is characterized by an incommensurate (ICM) wave vector k ~ [0.15, 0.42,1/2]. The Cu2+ ions carry a magnetic moment of 0.67(1) mB/ Cu2+ at 1.5 K and form a four helices spin arrangement with two canted pairs within the tetrahedra. A domain redistribution is observed when a magnetic field is applied in the tetragonal plane (Hc≈0.5 T), but not for H||c up to 4 T. The excitation spectrum is characterized by two well-defined modes, one completely dispersionless at 6.0 meV, the other strongly dispersing to a gap of 2 meV. The reason for such complex ground state and spin excitations may be geometrical frustration of the Cu2+ spins within the tetrahedra, intra- and inter-tetrahedral couplings having similar strengths and strong Dzyaloshinski-Moriya anisotropy. Candidates for the dominant intra- and inter-tetrahedral interactions are proposed.
We present a comparative study of the coupled-tetrahedra quantum spin systems Cu2Te2O5X2, X=Cl, Br (Cu-2252(X)) and the newly synthesized Cu4Te5O12Cl4 (Cu-45124(Cl)) based on ab initio Density Functional Theory calculations. The magnetic behavior of Cu-45124(Cl) with a phase transition to an ordered state at a lower critical temperature T$_c$=13.6K than in Cu-2252(Cl) (T$_c$=18K) can be well understood in terms of the modified interaction paths. We identify the relevant structural changes between the two systems and discuss the hypothetical behavior of the not yet synthesized Cu-45124(Br) with an ab initio relaxed structure using Car-Parrinello Molecular Dynamics.
Layered pnictide materials have provided a fruitful platform to study various emergent phenomena, including superconductivity, magnetism, charge density waves, etc. Here we report the observation of structural distortion and noncollinear magnetism in layered pnictide EuAg$_4$As$_2$ via transport, magnetization, single crystal X-ray and neutron diffraction data. EuAg$_4$As$_2$ single crystal shows a structural distortion at 120 K, where two sets of superlattice peaks with the propagation vectors of $q_1=pm$(0, 0.25, 0.5) and $q_2=pm$(0.25, 0, 1) emerge. Between 9 K to 15 K, the hexagonal Eu$^{2+}$ sub-lattice enters an unpinned state, with magnetic Bragg reflections pictured as circular-sectors. Below 9 K, it orders in an incommensurate noncollinear antiferromagnetic state with a well-defined propagation wavevector of (0, 0.1, 0.12), where the magnetic structure is helical along the $c$ axis and cycloidal along the $b$ axis with a moment of 6.4 $mu_B$/Eu$^{2+}$. Furthermore, rich magnetic phases under magnetic fields, large magnetoresistance, and strong coupling between charge carriers and magnetism in EuAg$_4$As$_2$ are revealed.
Anisotropic multiferroic properties of SrMnGe2O6 pyroxene single crystals were systematically investigated by means of magnetization, heat capacity, pyroelectric current measurement and elastic and inelastic neutron scattering experiments. Single crystal neutron diffraction allows us to unambiguously reveal the presence of two incommensurate magnetic orderings: a non-polar amplitude-modulated collinear sinusoidal magnetic structure emerges at TN1=4.36(2)K followed by a polar elliptical cycloidal spin structure below TN2=4.05(2)K. Pyroelectric current measurements on single crystal confirm the appearance of a spontaneous polarization within the (ac) plane below TN2 associated with the latter magnetic symmetry through extended Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya mechanism. The magnetic phase diagram was calculated considering the three isotropic exchange couplings relevant in this system. The magnetic excitations spectra of SrMnGe2O6 measured by inelastic neutron scattering were successfully modeled using a set of exchange interactions consistent with this phase diagram.
Co$_{4}$B$_{6}$O$_{13}$ contains undistorted tetrahedral clusters of magnetic Co$^{2+}$ ions. The high-field magnetization of this magnet exhibits a periodic undulation indicating quantization of the total spin number per cluster. Measurements of magnetic susceptibility and specific heat reveal that the ground state is composed of several different singlet states, reflecting the high symmetry of the spin tetrahedron. An exact diagonalization calculation taking account of single-ion type anisotropies and Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interactions reproduces the expretimental results very well.
Thermodynamic experiments as well as Raman scattering have been used to study the magnetic instabilities in the spin-tetrahedra systems Cu_2Te_2O_5X_2, X=Cl and Br. While the phase transition observed in the Cl system at T_o=18.2 K is consistent with 3D AF ordering, the phase transition at T_o=11.3 K in the Br system has several unusual features. We propose an explanation in terms of weakly coupled tetrahedra with a singlet-triplet gap and low lying singlets.