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@INPROCEEDINGS{Thoma:897121,
author = {Thoma, Henrik and Hutanu, Vladimir and Angst, Manuel and
Roth, Georg},
title = {{A}bsolute sign of the {D}zyaloshinskii-{M}oriya
interaction in weak ferromagnets disclosed by polarized
neutron diffraction},
reportid = {FZJ-2021-03619},
year = {2021},
abstract = {Magnetic interactions are the fundamental components for
the fascinating variety of complex magnetic structures and
properties found in many functional materials. Identifying,
understanding, and finally predicting these interactions is
an essential step towards their utilization in novel
devices. One of these basic interactions is the
Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) – an antisymmetric
exchange coupling favouring a perpendicular arrangement of
magnetic moments, and thus a canting in otherwise collinear
structures [1,2]. The DMI, originally introduced in the late
1950s to explain ‘weak ferromagnets’ (not perfectly
collinear antiferromagnets), regained the interest in
current condensed matter research as it was found to be the
driving force to stabilize various novel topological
noncollinear magnetic structures, such as spin spirals [3],
magnetic skyrmions [4], magnetic soliton lattices [5] and
others. In particular for spintronic applications, the DMI
shows promising characteristics towards the development of
next-generation devices [6]. Although the magnitude of the
DMI-induced canting is usually small, the direction can have
a fundamental impact on the spin chirality and the resulting
magnetic and multiferroic properties [7]. Here, we present
polarized neutron diffraction (PND) as an efficient
technique for the determination of the absolute direction of
the DMI in weak ferromagnetic materials, as recently
established by us [8]. We provide the basic formalism for a
symmetry analysis of the DMI in crystal structures and show
how to relate the measured PND data with the absolute DMI
direction. We exemplify this approach in weak ferromagnetic
MnCO3 and identify the magnetic moment configurations for a
positive or negative sign of the DMI with an applied
magnetic field. Using PND [9], we can distinguish even from
the measurement of a single suitable Bragg reflection
between the two configurations and unambiguously reveal a
negative DMI sign in MnCO3. This is in agreement with
previous results obtained by resonant magnetic X-ray
scattering and thus, validates the method [10]. We
demonstrate the generality of our method by providing
further examples of topical magnetic materials with
different symmetries and support our findings with ab-initio
calculations, which reproduce the experimental results. [1]
V. E. Dzyaloshinskii, Sov. Phys. - JETP 5(6), 1259 (1957)[2]
T. Moriya, Phys. Rev. 120(1), 91 (1960),[3] M. Bode et al.,
Nature 447, 190 (2007),[4] S. Heinze et al., Nat. Phys. 7,
713 (2011),[5] Y. Togawa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108,
107202 (2012),[6] S. S. P. Parkin et al., Science 320, 190
(2008),[7] J. Cho et al., J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50, 425004
(2017),[8] H. Thoma et al., Phys. Rev. X 11, 011060
(2021),[9] H. Thoma et al., J. Appl. Crystallogr. 51, 17
(2018),[10] V. E. Dmitrienko et al., Nat. Phys. 10, 202
(2014)},
month = {Aug},
date = {2021-08-14},
organization = {XXV General Assembly and Congress of
the International Union of
Crystallography, Prague (Czech
Republic), 14 Aug 2021 - 22 Aug 2021},
subtyp = {After Call},
cin = {JCNS-FRM-II / JARA-FIT / JCNS-2 / JCNS-4 / MLZ},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)JCNS-FRM-II-20110218 /
$I:(DE-82)080009_20140620$ / I:(DE-Juel1)JCNS-2-20110106 /
I:(DE-Juel1)JCNS-4-20201012 / I:(DE-588b)4597118-3},
pnm = {6G4 - Jülich Centre for Neutron Research (JCNS) (FZJ)
(POF4-6G4) / 632 - Materials – Quantum, Complex and
Functional Materials (POF4-632)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-6G4 / G:(DE-HGF)POF4-632},
experiment = {EXP:(DE-MLZ)POLI-HEIDI-20140101},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)6},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/897121},
}