Giant Magnetoelastic Effects in BaTiO3-based Extrinsic Multiferroic Hybrids

Extrinsic multiferroic hybrid structures consisting of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric layers elastically coupled to each other are promising due to their robust magnetoelectric effects even at room temperature. For a quantitative analysis of these magnetoelectric effects, a detailed knowledge of the piezoelectric and magnetoelastic behavior of both constituents as well as their mutual elastic coupling is mandatory. We here report on a theoretical and experimental study of the magnetic behavior of BaTiO3-based extrinsic multiferroic structures. An excellent agreement between molecular dynamics simulations and the experiments was found for Fe50Co50/BaTiO3 and Ni/BaTiO3 hybrid structures. This demonstrates that the magnetic behavior of extrinsic multiferroic hybrid structures can be determined by means of ab-initio calculations, allowing for the design of novel multiferroic hybrids

Magnetoelastic effects in Jahn-Teller distorted CrF2_2 and CuF2_2 studied by neutron powder diffraction

We have studied the temperature dependence of crystal and magnetic structures of the Jahn-Teller distorted transition metal difluorides CrF$_2$ and CuF$_2$ by neutron powder diffraction in the temperature range 2-280 K. The lattice parameters and the unit cell volume show magnetoelastic effects below the N\'eel temperature. The lattice strain due to the magnetostriction effect couples with the square of the order parameter of the antiferromagnetic phase transition. We also investigated the temperature dependence of the Jahn-Teller distortion which does not show any significant effect at the antiferromagnetic phase transition but increases linearly with increasing temperature for CrF$_2$ and remains almost independent of temperature in CuF$_2$. The magnitude of magnetovolume effect seems to increase with the low temperature saturated magnetic moment of the transition metal ions but the correlation is not at all perfect

Tetragonal magnetostriction and magnetoelastic coupling in Fe-Al, Fe-Ga, Fe-Ge, Fe-Si, Fe-Ga-Al, and Fe-Ga-Ge alloys

This paper presents a comparative study on the tetragonal magnetostriction constant,λγ,2, [ = (3/2)λ100] and magnetoelastic coupling, b1, of binary Fe100-xZx (0 \u3c x \u3c 35, Z = Al, Ga, Ge, and Si) and ternary Fe-Ga-Al and Fe-Ga-Ge alloys. The quantities are corrected for magnetostrains due to sample geometry (the magnetostrictive form effect). Recently published elastic constant data along with magnetization measurements at both room temperature and 77 K make these corrections possible. The form effect correction lowers the magnetostriction by ∼10 ppm for high-modulus alloys and by as much as 30 ppm for low-modulus alloys. The elastic constants are also used to determine the values of the magnetoelastic coupling constant, b1. With the new magnetostriction data on the Fe-Al-Ga alloy, it is possible to show how the double peak magnetostriction feature of the binary Fe-Ga alloy flows into the single peak binary Fe-Al alloy. The corrected magnetostriction and magnetoelastic coupling data for the various alloys are also compared using the electron-per-atom ratio, e/a, as the common variable. The Hume-Rothery rules link thee/a ratio to the regions of phase stability, which appear to be intimately related to the magnetostriction versus the solute concentration curve in these alloys. Using e/a as the abscissa tends to align the peaks in the magnetostriction and magnetoelastic coupling for the Fe-Ga, Fe-Ge, Fe-Al, Fe-Ga-Al, and Fe-Ga-Ge alloys, but not for the Fe-Si alloys for which the larger atomic size difference may play a greater role in phase stabilization. Corrections for the form effect are also presented for the rhombohedral magnetostriction,λɛ,2, and the magnetoelastic coupling, b2, of Fe100-xGax (0 \u3c x \u3c 35) alloys

Quantum Relaxation of Magnetisation in Magnetic Particles

At temperatures below the magnetic anisotropy energy, monodomain magnetic systems (small particles, nanomagnetic devices, etc.) must relax quantum mechanically. This quantum relaxation must be mediated by the coupling to both nuclear spins and phonons (and electrons if either particle or substrate is conducting. We analyze the effect of each of these couplings, and then combine them. Conducting systems can be modelled by a "giant Kondo" Hamiltonian, with nuclear spins added in as well. At low temperatures, even microscopic particles on a conducting substrate (containing only $10-50$ spins) will have their magnetisation frozen over millenia by a combination of electronic dissipation and the "degeneracy blocking" caused by nuclear spins. Raising the temperature leads to a sudden unblocking of the spin dynamics at a well defined temperature. Insulating systems are quite different. The relaxation is strongly enhanced by the coupling to nuclear spins. At short times the magnetisation of an ensemble of particles relaxes logarithmically in time, after an initial very fast decay; this relaxation proceeds entirely via the nuclear spins. At longer times phonons take over, but the decay rate is still governed by the temperature-dependent nuclear bias field acting on the particles - decay may be exponential or power-law depending on the temperature. The most surprising feature of the results is the pivotal role played by the nuclear spins. The results are relevant to any experiments on magnetic particles in which interparticle dipolar interactions are unimportant. They are also relevant to future magnetic device technology.Comment: 30 pages, RevTex, e:mail , Submitted to J.Low Temp.Phys. on 1 Nov. 199

Spin-flop transition driven by competing magnetoelastic anisotropy terms in a spin-spiral antiferromagnet

Holmium, the archetypical system for spin-spiral antiferromagnetism, undergoes an in-plane spin-flop transition earlier attributed to competing symmetry-breaking and fully symmetric magnetoelas-tic (MEL) anisotropy terms [Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 227204 (2005)], which underlines the emergence of six-fold MEL constants in heavy rare earth (RE) metals, as otherwise later studies suggested [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 267201 (2007) and Phys. Rev. B 89, 134421 (2014)]. A model that encompasses MEL contributions to the in-plane sixfold magnetic anisotropy is laid out to elucidate the mechanism behind the spin-flop transition. The model, which is tested in a Ho-based superlat-tice, shows that the interplay between competing fully symmetric α-MEL and symmetry-breaking γ-MEL anisotropy terms triggers the spin-reorientation. This also unveils the dominant role played by the six-fold exchange magnetostriction constant, where D 66 α2 0.32 GPa against its crystal-field counterpart M 66 α2 −0.2 GPa, in contrast to the crystal-field origin of the symmetry-breaking mag-netostriction in RE metals