2009/05/13 by Sungdae Ji, S.-H. Lee, Ji, S. +11 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #FOS: Physical sciences #Multiferroics and related materials #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0905.2127
openalex publication_date 2009/05/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Using synchrotron X-rays and neutron diffraction we disentangle spin-lattice order in highly frustrated ZnCr2O4 where magnetic chromium ions occupy the vertices of regular tetrahedra. Upon cooling below 12.5 K the quandary of anti-aligning spins surrounding the triangular faces of tetrahedra is resolved by establishing weak interactions on each triangle through an intricate lattice distortion. The resulting spin order is however, not simply a Néel state on strong bonds. A complex co-planar spin structure indicates that antisymmetric and/or further neighbor exchange interactions also play a role as ZnCr2O4 resolves conflicting magnetic interactions.