Field dependence of magnetic ordering in Kagomé-staircase compound Ni3V2O8

M. Kenzelmann, A. B. Harris, A. Aharony, O. Entin-Wohlman, T. Yildirim, Q. Huang, S. Park, G. Lawes, C. Broholm, N. Rogado, R. J. Cava, K. H. Kim, G. Jorge, and A. P. Ramirez
Phys. Rev. B 74, 014429 – Published 25 July 2006

Abstract

We present powder and single-crystal neutron diffraction and bulk measurements of the Kagomé-staircase compound Ni3V2O8 (NVO) in fields up to 8.5T applied along the c direction. (The Kagomé plane is the ac plane.) This system contains two types of Ni ions, which we call “spine” and “cross-tie.” Our neutron measurements can be described with the paramagnetic space group Cmca for T<15K and each observed magnetically ordered phase is characterized by the appropriate irreducible representation(s). Our zero-field measurements show that at TPH=9.1K NVO undergoes a transition to a predominantly longitudinal incommensurate structure in which the spine spins are nearly along the a-axis. At THL=6.3K, there is a transition to an elliptically polarized incommensurate structure with both spine and cross-tie moments in the ab plane. At TLC=4K the system undergoes a first-order phase transition to a commensurate antiferromagnetic structure with the staggered magnetization primarily along the a-axis and a weak ferromagnetic moment along the c-axis. A specific heat anomaly at TCC=2.3K indicates an additional transition, which remarkably does not affect Bragg peaks of the commensurate C structure. Neutron, specific heat, and magnetization measurements produce a comprehensive temperature-field phase diagram. The symmetries of the incommensurate magnetic phases are consistent with the observation that only one phase is electrically polarized. The magnetic structures are explained theoretically using a simplified model Hamiltonian, that involves competing nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor exchange interactions, single-ion anisotropy, pseudodipolar interactions, and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions.

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  • Received 13 October 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.74.014429

©2006 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

M. Kenzelmann1,2, A. B. Harris3, A. Aharony4, O. Entin-Wohlman4, T. Yildirim2, Q. Huang2, S. Park2, G. Lawes5, C. Broholm1,2, N. Rogado6, R. J. Cava6, K. H. Kim5, G. Jorge5, and A. P. Ramirez5,7

  • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA
  • 2NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA
  • 3Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
  • 4School of Physics and Astronomy, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel and Department of Physics, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel
  • 5Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA
  • 6Department of Chemistry and Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
  • 7Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, 600 Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974, USA

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Vol. 74, Iss. 1 — 1 July 2006

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