Abstract
Materials with nonsymmorphic symmetries have many applications and have recently come to the forefront as possibly harboring new topological states of matter, such as 8-fold fermions. Here, we report the single crystal growth of Bi2CuO4 using the traveling solvent floating zone technique. Using laser heating combined with a 0.875 Bi2CuO4:0.125 Bi2O3 solvent, we produce untwinned single crystal pieces. Three-dimensional X-ray microcomputed tomography is used to probe the fundamental origins of twinning, grain formation, and growth. Powder X-ray diffraction and Laue diffraction show that Bi2CuO4 crystallizes in the space group P4/ncc (#130), orders antiferromagnetically with TN = 43 K, and, combined with comparisons to the literature, demonstrate the crystallinity and reproducibility of the synthesis. The entropy lost at the magnetic phase transition is Î"Smag = 0.25 ln(2); it arises from a high anisotropy in the magnetic interactions. We carry out a symmetry analysis demonstrating that Bi2CuO4's magnetic order implies a rich breaking of the parent 8-fold symmetric states. Our results provide a roadmap for the creation of future magnetic derivatives of 8-fold, double Dirac single crystals and related quantum states of matter with nonsymmorphic symmetries. This approach also offers guidance on improving the single growth of nonsymmorphic materials from cuprates to van der Waals solids.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 5827-5834 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Chemistry of Materials |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 13 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 14 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was supported as part of the Institute for Quantum Matter, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the United States Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Award DE-SC0019331. This work utilized synthetic capabilities in the Platform for the Accelerated Realization, Analysis, and Discovery of Interface Materials (DMR-1539918), a National Science Foundation Materials Innovation Platform. Access to the Bruker 1172 instrument was possible via the Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute (HEMI).