Pressure control of the spin reorientation transition in the rare-earth orthoferrite ${\mathrm{YbFeO}}_{3}$

Pressure control of the spin reorientation transition in the rare-earth orthoferrite ${YbFeO}_{3}$

S. A. Skorobogatov, L. S. Wu, T. Xie, K. A. Shaykhutdinov, E. V. Pomjakushina, A. Podlesnyak, and S. E. Nikitin

Phys. Rev. B 108, 054432 – Published 23 August 2023

Abstract

${YbFeO}_{3}$ is exceptional among the rare-earth orthoferrites for having the lowest spin-reorientation transition (SRT) temperature, $T_{SRT} ≃ 8 K$ , which makes it particularly appealing to examine the interplay between noncollinear magnetism of the Fe sublattice and quasi-one-dimensional XXZ effective $S = 1 / 2$ chains of ${Yb}^{3 +}$ moments. Our paper focuses on the magnetic dynamics of ${YbFeO}_{3}$ using inelastic neutron scattering (INS), at temperatures below and above the SRT, under an applied hydrostatic pressure of 2 GPa, and in magnetic fields up to 4 T. The low-energy zero-field excitation spectrum at ambient pressure and temperatures below the SRT is dominated by a gapped magnon mode of the Yb subsystem at 0.84 meV with a dispersion only in the $[00 L]$ direction. Above $T_{SRT}$ , a continuum appears on top of the magnon mode because of temperature population of the magnon band, and the gap decreases to around 0.4 meV. The INS spectra in the magnetic field, both above and below $T_{SRT}$ , are characterized by two well-separated gapped modes. The SRT is clearly visible at low fields $B < 1 T$ , but it gradually disappears at higher magnetic fields. The hydrostatic pressure of $p = 2 GPa$ effectively reduces the transition width, $Δ T_{SRT}$ , and keeps the SRT at higher fields up to $B ≃ 3 T$ . We discuss the effect of the applied pressure in the frame of the modified mean-field theory and show that in the vicinity of the $T_{SRT}$ the pressure tunes the fourth-order anisotropy constant that effectively reduces the $Δ T_{SRT}$ .

Received 31 May 2023
Accepted 7 August 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.108.054432

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Magnetic phase transitions Magnetism Spin dynamics

Antiferromagnets Noncollinear magnets Rare-earth magnetic materials

Inelastic neutron scattering Pressure techniques Time-of-flight neutron spectroscopy

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

S. A. Skorobogatov^1,2, L. S. Wu^3,4, T. Xie ⁵, K. A. Shaykhutdinov^1,2, E. V. Pomjakushina⁶, A. Podlesnyak ⁵, and S. E. Nikitin^7,*

¹Kirensky Institute of Physics, Federal Research Center KSC SB RAS, Krasnoyarsk 660036, Russia
²Department of Solid State Physics and Nanotechnology, Institute of Engineering Physics and Radioelectronics, Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk 660041, Russia
³Department of Physics, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
⁴Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Advanced Quantum Functional Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
⁵Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
⁶Laboratory for Multiscale Materials Experiments, Paul Scherrer Institut, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
⁷Laboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging, Paul Scherrer Institut, CH-5232 Villigen-PSI, Switzerland

^*Corresponding author: stanislav.nikitin@psi.ch

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Vol. 108, Iss. 5 — 1 August 2023

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Figure 1
Temperature dependence of the magnetization of ${YbFeO}_{3}$ measured at $B = 0.005 T$ along the $a$ axis (blue line). The hollow black circles are the experimental data of the gap in the excitation spectrum at $Q = (001)$ reciprocal lattice units in zero field and ambient pressure. The solid red line is fit to the modified mean-field theory (see text). Insets: Schematic magnetic structures of the iron sublattice below (left) and above (right) the SRT. Yellow and green spheres represent Fe and Yb ions, respectively. The octahedra denote the oxygen coordination environment.
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Figure 2
Effect of temperature and magnetic field on the low-energy excitation spectra of ${YbFeO}_{3}$ . Color contour plots of the experimental spectrum along the ( $00 L$ ) direction (top) and corresponding energy cuts (bottom) at $Q =$ (002) measured in pressure $p = 2 GPa$ at $T = 6 K$ (a), (c), (e), (g), 10 K (b), (d), (f), (h), and magnetic field $B = 0 T$ (a), (b), (e), (f) and 2 T (c), (d), (g), (h). The $x$ axis in panels (a)–(d) is shown in reciprocal lattice units. The intensity corresponds to the neutron count rate in arbitrary units after subtraction of nonmagnetic background and normalization.
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Figure 3
Temperature and magnetic field dependence of the energy of magnon excitation at $Q =$ (001), measured at (a) ambient pressure and (b) $p = 2 GPa$ . The solid and dotted lines are guides to the eyes to track the temperature evolution of SRT and field splitting of the magnon modes, respectively. Inset: Sketch of the field-induced magnetic structure of the Yb sublattice below $T_{SRT}$ and the direction of the external magnetic field.
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Figure 4
(a) Energy gap at $Q =$ (002) as function of temperature in the vicinity of $T_{SRT}$ . The blue and red circles are the experimental data at ambient pressure and $p = 2 GPa$ , respectively. Solid lines are the fitting results of the experimental data to the function of Eq. (5) (see text). The dashed line shows the transition in the case of $K_{4} = 0$ . (b) Energy gap as a function of the external magnetic field at $T = 6 K$ (circles) and $T = 10 K$ (squares) for the ambient pressure (blue) and $p = 2 GPa$ (red), respectively. The circles and squares denote the experimental data. The lines are linear fits to the experiment for $B > 2 T$ . The nonlinear behavior of the energy gap is clearly visible at low fields. (c) Angular-dependent part of free energy for different temperatures close to the SRT. Arrows indicate position of the energy minimum at intermediate temperatures. (d) Schematic representation of magnetic configuration of Fe moments and ferromagnetic moment $F$ for $Γ 2, Γ 2 + Γ 4$ , and $Γ 4$ phases.
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Physical Review B

covering condensed matter and materials physics

Pressure control of the spin reorientation transition in the rare-earth orthoferrite ${YbFeO}_{3}$

S. A. Skorobogatov, L. S. Wu, T. Xie, K. A. Shaykhutdinov, E. V. Pomjakushina, A. Podlesnyak, and S. E. Nikitin

Phys. Rev. B 108, 054432 – Published 23 August 2023

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Physical Review B

covering condensed matter and materials physics

Pressure control of the spin reorientation transition in the rare-earth orthoferrite YbFeO3

S. A. Skorobogatov, L. S. Wu, T. Xie, K. A. Shaykhutdinov, E. V. Pomjakushina, A. Podlesnyak, and S. E. Nikitin

Phys. Rev. B 108, 054432 – Published 23 August 2023

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Pressure control of the spin reorientation transition in the rare-earth orthoferrite ${YbFeO}_{3}$