Absolute crystal and magnetic chiralities in the langasite compound Ba3NbFe3Si2O14 determined by polarized neutron and x-ray scattering

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.102.054417

Authors: N. Qureshi (Institut Laue-Langevin) , A. Bombardi (Diamond Light Source) , S. Picozzi (Sede di Lavoro CNR-SPIN c/o Universitá G. d'Annunzio) , P. Barone (Sede di Lavoro CNR-SPIN c/o Universitá G. d'Annunzio) , E. Lelièvre-Berna (Institut Laue-Langevin) , X. Xu (Rutgers University) , C. Stock (University of Edinburgh) , D. F. Mcmorrow (University College London (UCL)) , A. Hearmon (Clarendon Laboratory) , F. Fabrizi (Clarendon Laboratory) , P. G. Radaelli (Clarendon Laboratory) , S.-W. Cheong (Rutgers University) , L. C. Chapon (Institut Laue-Langevin; Diamond Light Source)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Physical Review B , VOL 102

State: Published (Approved)
Published: August 2020
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 4073 , 1803 , 17569

Abstract: We present a combined polarized neutron and x-ray scattering study on two enantiopure langasite single crystals aimed at the determination of their absolute structural and magnetic chiralities and the coupling between them. Our respective data sets unambiguously reveal two samples of opposite structural chirality, where the magnetic handedness is pinned by the structural one. Simple energy considerations of the magnetic exchange and single-ion anisotropy parameters reveal that it is not the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction but the local single-ion anisotropy on a triangular plaquette which plays a key role in stabilizing one of the two magnetic helices.

Journal Keywords: Antiferromagnetism; Chirality; Magnetic order; Skyrmions; Structural properties; Neutron scattering; X-ray scattering

Diamond Keywords: Antiferromagnetism

Subject Areas: Materials, Physics


Instruments: I16-Materials and Magnetism

Added On: 19/08/2020 10:25

Discipline Tags:

Quantum Materials Hard condensed matter - electronic properties Physics Magnetism Materials Science

Technical Tags:

Scattering