Investigating the magnetic ground state of the skyrmion host material Cu2OSeO3 using long-wavelength neutron diffraction

DOI: 10.1063/1.5129400

Authors: K. J. A. Franke (Durham University; University of Leeds; University of California, Berkeley) , P. R. Dean (Durham University) , M. Ciomaga Hatnean (University of Warwick) , M. T. Birch (Durham University) , D. D. Khalyavin (ISIS Facility) , P, Manuel (ISIS Facility) , T. Lancaster (Durham University) , G. Balakrishnan (University of Warwick) , P. D. Hatton (University of Durham)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Aip Advances , VOL 9

State: Published (Approved)
Published: December 2019

Abstract: We present long-wavelength neutron diffraction data measured on both single crystal and polycrystalline samples of the skyrmion host material Cu2OSeO3. We observe magnetic satellites around the (0 1 ⎯ ⎯ 1) (01¯1) diffraction peak not accessible to other techniques, and distinguish helical from conical spin textures in reciprocal space. Our measurements show that not only the field-polarised phase but also the helical ground state are made up of ferrimagnetic clusters instead of individual spins. These clusters are distorted Cu tetrahedra, where the spin on one Cu ion is anti-aligned with the spin on the three other Cu ions.

Diamond Keywords: Skyrmions; Ferromagnetism

Subject Areas: Materials, Physics


Instruments: I10-Beamline for Advanced Dichroism - scattering

Added On: 16/01/2020 10:32

Documents:
fgh5ght65.pdf

Discipline Tags:

Quantum Materials Physics Hard condensed matter - structures Magnetism Materials Science

Technical Tags:

Scattering Resonant Elastic X-ray Scattering (REXS)