Piezomagnetism in the Ising ferromagnet URhGe

Piezomagnetism, linear response between strain and magnetic field, is relatively unexplored cross-correlation but has promising potential as a novel probe of time-reversal-symmetry breaking in various classes of materials. Interestingly, there has been no report of piezomagnetism in ferromagnets, most archetypal time-reversal-symmetry-broken materials. This half-century absence of piezomagnetic ferromagnets is attributable to complications originating from multiple-domain states, as well as from changes in the magnetic point group by rotation of magnetic moment. Here, we report characteristic V-shaped magnetostriction in the Ising itinerant ferromagnet URhGe, observed by simultaneous multi-axis strain measurement technique utilizing optical fiber Bragg grating sensors. This novel magnetostriction occurs only under fields along the c axis and does not scale with the square of magnetization. Such unconventional feature indicates piezomagnetism as its origin. Our observation, marking the first report of piezomagnetism in ferromagnets, is owing to the mono-domain switching and the Ising magnetization. The obtained piezomagnetic coefficients are fairly large, implying that Ising ferromagnets are promising frontiers when seeking for materials with large piezomagnetic responses.
Comment: 6 pages of main text (5 figures, 1 table) + 4 pages of supplemental material (4 figures)