2022/02/15 by Vilmos Kocsis, David A. S. Kaib, Kira Riedl +14
Chemistry · Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Anisotropy #Chemistry #Condensed matter physics #Coupling (piping) #Crystal structure #Crystallography #Geometry #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Magnetic anisotropy #Magnetic field #Magnetization #Magnetostriction #Materials science #Mathematics #Multiferroics and related materials #Octahedron #Optics #Orientation (vector space) #Physics #Quantum mechanics #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.105.094410
main + supplementary, 12 + 3 pages, 6 + 4 figures, Accepted version
arxiv created 2022/02/15 · openalex publication_date 2022/03/07 · arxiv updated 2022/03/14 · openalex created_date 2022/04/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
The Kitaev material α-RuCl3 is among the most prominent candidates to host a quantum spin-liquid state endowed with fractionalized excitations. Recent experimental and theoretical investigations have separately revealed the importance of both the magnetoelastic coupling and the magnetic anisotropy, in dependence of the applied magnetic field direction. In this combined theoretical and experimental research, we investigate the anisotropic magnetic and magnetoelastic properties for magnetic fields applied along the main crystallographic axes as well as for fields canted out of the honeycomb plane. We found that the magnetostriction anisotropy is unusually large compared to the anisotropy of the magnetization, which is related to the strong magnetoelastic \widetildeΓ'-type coupling in our ab-initio derived model. We observed large, non-symmetric magnetic anisotropy for magnetic fields canted out of the honeycomb ab-plane in opposite directions, namely towards the +c^* or -c^* axes, respectively. The observed directional anisotropy is explained by considering the relative orientation of the magnetic field with respect to the co-aligned RuCl6 octahedra. Magnetostriction measurements in canted fields support this non-symmetric magnetic anisotropy, however these experiments are affected by magnetic torque effects. Comparison of theoretical predictions with experimental findings allow us to recognize the significant contribution of torque effects in experimental setups where α-RuCl3 is placed in canted magnetic fields.