1. Breathing pyrochlore magnet CuGaCr$_{4}$S$_{8}$: Magnetic, thermodynamic, and dielectric properties
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Gen, M., Ishikawa, H., Miyake, A., Yajima, T., Jeschke, H. O., Sagayama, H., Ikeda, A., Matsuda, Y. H., Kindo, K., Tokunaga, M., Kohama, Y., Kurumaji, T., Tokunaga, Y., and Arima, T.
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Condensed Matter - Materials Science - Abstract
We investigate the crystallographic and magnetic properties of a chromium-based thiospinel CuGaCr$_{4}$S$_{8}$. From a synchrotron x-ray diffraction experiment and structural refinement, Cu and Ga atoms are found to occupy the tetrahedral $A$-sites in an alternate way, yielding breathing pyrochlore Cr network. CuGaCr$_{4}$S$_{8}$ undergoes a magnetic transition associated with a structural distortion at 31 K in zero magnetic field, indicating that the spin-lattice coupling is responsible for relieving the geometrical frustration. When applying a pulsed high magnetic field, a sharp metamagnetic transition takes place at 40 T, followed by a 1/2-magnetization plateau up to 103 T. These phase transitions accompany dielectric anomalies, suggesting the presence of helical spin correlations in low-field phases. The density-functional-theory calculation reveals that CuGaCr$_{4}$S$_{8}$ is dominated by antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic exchange couplings within small and large tetrahedra, respectively, in analogy with CuInCr$_{4}$S$_{8}$. We argue that $A$-site-ordered Cr thiospinels serve as an excellent platform to explore diverse magnetic phases along with pronounced magnetoelastic and magnetodielectric responses., Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures
- Published
- 2023
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