Abstract
A detailed analysis of the ferrimagnetic ground state of Mn3Si2Te6has been performed using inelastic neutron scattering. Although the proposed valence of the nominal Mn2+ ions would have quenched orbital angular momentum, a significant exchange anisotropy exists in Mn3Si2Te6. This apparent exchange anisotropy is a manifestation of a weak spin-orbit coupling in the layered material. We employ a detailed simulation of the spin-wave spectrum coupling traditional refinement of dispersion parameters to image analysis techniques, while including Monte Carlo simulations of the instrumental resolution to accurately identify the exchange couplings to the third nearest neighbor. An independent validation of our results is made by comparing our final Hamiltonian to heat capacity measurements.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 214405 |
| Journal | Physical Review B |
| Volume | 105 |
| Issue number | 21 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 1 2022 |
Funding
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. Work at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source was supported by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). We acknowledge useful discussions with C. Batista that helped us in the preparation of this manuscript. We acknowledge J. Leiner and A. Savici for useful discussions regarding background subtraction. We acknowledge Hao Zhang for useful discussions regarding Berry curvature calculations. This manuscript has been partially supported by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan.