2005/05/02 by S. Di Matteo, George Jackeli, G. jackeli +2
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.72.020408
published as Phys. Rev. B 72, 020408(R) (2005)
arxiv created 2005/05/02 · openalex publication_date 2005/07/25 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Motivated by recent theoretical and experimental controversy, we present a theoretical study to clarify the orbital symmetry of the ground state of vanadium spinel oxides AV2O4 (A=Zn, Mg, Cd). The study is based on an effective Hamiltonian with spin-orbital superexchange interaction and a local spin-orbit coupling term. We construct a classical phase diagram and prove the complex orbital nature of the ground state. Remarkably, with our analysis we predict correctly also the coherent tetragonal flattening of oxygen octahedra. Finally, through analytical considerations as well as numerical ab initio simulations, we propose how to detect the predicted complex orbital ordering through vanadium K-edge resonant x-ray scattering.