Effect of residual strain on magnetic properties and Hall effect in chiral antiferromagnet Mn₃Sn

Abstract

Here, the effect of residual strain generated by uniaxial stress applied to polycrystalline Mn3Sn on magnetic properties and Hall effect is investigated. Contrary to the role of pressure in Mn3Sn, both Hall measurements and our theoretically calculated kagome lattice distortions suggest that residual strain is beneficial for suppressing the magnetic transition from the inverse triangular AFM state to the helical AFM state. Furthermore, the topological Hall effect is observed in Mn3Sn over the entire temperature range from 5 K to 400 K due to residual strain. Combined with the magnetic measurements, we speculate that THE originates from residual strain-induced non-coplanar AFM structure. Our findings point out a method to realize the chiral non-coplanar AFM structure through strain engineering, thereby providing a path for the construction of topological antiferromagnets.

Zero-field-cooling exchange bias up to room temperature in the strained kagome antiferromagnet Mn3.1Sn0.9

“…According to literature, both effects contribute to the generation of non-coplanar magnetic structures. 35–37,50 Therefore, our strain design recipe supports the pinning phase sublattice generation of ZFC EB from a microstructural point of view.…”

“…41,58,59 An abnormal increase in c due to the application of uniaxial stress was also observed in ref. 37. The abnormal increase of c may be a sign of an obvious non-coplanar magnetic structure generation, which is analogous to the piezomagnetic effect in antiperovskite.…”

“…35,36 and our previous work. 37 One is a non-collinear AFM configuration in the kagome plane as shown in Fig. 5(a), and the other is a collinear FM configuration perpendicular to the kagome plane as shown in Fig.…”

“…Second, the physical compressive stress operation in Mn 3 Sn could construct the non-coplanar AFM Mn kagome sublattice according to ref. 35–37, providing the pinning phase for ZFC EB. See the experimental details below for the specific method of applying physical compressive stress.…”

Effect of sodium addition on structural and magnetic properties of solid state processed SrFe12−xAlxO19 (x ≤ 4)

“…Here, the large residual strain in samples can be attributed to local inhomogeneous distortion of lattice by substitution of smaller Al 3+ for larger Fe 3+ . In addition, residual strain by cation doping can partially contribute enhanced coercivity of magnetic materials by affecting domain motion [24,25].…”