Abstract
has been reported to exhibit metamagnetic transitions below 5 K, a giant crystal field splitting, and anisotropic magnetic properties from single crystal magnetization and heat capacity measurements. Here we report results of neutron and x-ray scattering studies of the magnetic structure and crystal-field excitations to further understand the magnetism of this compound. Inelastic neutron scattering and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering reveal a ground state for Ce when considering the crystallographic direction as quantization axis, thus explaining the anisotropy of the static susceptibility. Furthermore, we find a total splitting of 78 meV for the multiplet. The neutron diffraction study in zero field reveals that, on cooling from the paramagnetic state, the system first orders at in a longitudinal spin density wave with ordered Ce moments along the axis (i.e., the [0 1 0] crystal direction) and an incommensurate propagation vector ). Below the lower-temperature transition , the propagation vector locks to the commensurate value , with a so-called lock-in transition. Our neutron diffraction study in applied magnetic field axis shows a change in the commensurate propagation vector and development of a ferromagnetic component at , followed by a series of transitions before the fully field-induced ferromagnetic phase is reached at . This explains the nature of the steps previously reported in field-dependent magnetization measurements. A very similar behavior is also observed for the [0 1 1] crystal direction.
5 More- Received 23 August 2021
- Revised 25 January 2022
- Accepted 23 February 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.105.125119
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.
Published by the American Physical Society