Abstract
Neutron diffraction measurements exploring the magnetic and structural phase behaviors of the candidate Mott insulating iridate SrIrO are presented. Comparisons are drawn between the correlated magnetism in this single-layer system and its bilayer analog SrIrO, where both materials exhibit magnetic domains originating from crystallographic twinning and comparable moment sizes. Weakly temperature-dependent superlattice peaks violating the reported tetragonal space group of SrIrO are observed, supporting the notion of a lower structural symmetry arising from a high-temperature lattice distortion, and we use this to argue that moments orient along a unique in-plane axis demonstrating an orthorhombic symmetry in the resulting spin structure. Our results demonstrate that the correlated spin order and structural phase behaviors in both single-layer and bilayer SrIrO systems are remarkably similar and suggest comparable correlation strengths in each system.
- Received 6 December 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.87.144405
©2013 American Physical Society