Abstract
Symmetric anisotropic interaction can be ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic at the same time but for different crystallographic axes. We show that the competition of anisotropic interactions of orthogonal irreducible representations can be a general route to obtain new exotic magnetic states. We demonstrate it here by observing the emergence of a continuously tunable 12-layer spatial spin modulation when distorting the square-lattice planes in the quasi-two-dimensional antiferromagnetic Sr2IrO4 under in situ shear strain. This translation-symmetry-breaking phase is a result of an unusual strain-activated anisotropic interaction which is at the fourth order and competing with the inherent quadratic anisotropic interaction. Such a mechanism of competing anisotropy is distinct from that among the ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, and/or the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, and it could be widely applicable and highly controllable in low-dimensional magnets.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 027203 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 129 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 8 2022 |
Funding
Sample synthesis (A. F. M.) was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. The in situ strain control and measurement setup are partially supported by AFOSR DURIP Award No. FA9550-19-1-0180 and as part of Programmable Quantum Materials, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES), under Award No. DE-SC0019443. J.-H. C. acknowledge the support of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Grant No. FA9550-21-1-0068. Transport measurement and modeling analysis are supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-SC0020254. This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. S. P. and J. Y. acknowledge funding from the State of Tennessee and Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) through their support of the Center for Materials Processing. The authors thank Cristian Batista for valuable discussions and Randal R. McMillan and Hao Zhang for providing technical support.