Transition-metal chalcogenides with intercalated layered
structures
are interesting systems in material physics due to their attractive
electronic and magnetic properties, with applications in the fields
of magnetic refrigerators, catalysts, and thermoelectrics, among others.
In this work, we studied in detail the structural, electronic, and
magnetic properties of (Fe,Ti)-based sulfides with formula Fe
x
Ti2S4 (x = 0.24, 0.32, and 0.42), prepared as polycrystalline materials under
high-pressure conditions. They present a layered Heideite-type crystal
structure, as assessed by synchrotron X-ray diffraction. A local structure
analysis using Fe K-edge extended X-ray-absorption
fine structure (EXAFS) data unveiled a conspicuous contraction of
the main Fe–S bond in Fe0.24Ti2S4 at the vicinity of the magnetic transition 60–80 K.
We suggest that this anomaly is related to magnetoelastic coupling
effects. The EXAFS analysis allowed extraction of the Einstein temperatures
(θ
E
), i.e., the phonon contribution
to the specific heat, for the two bond pairs Fe–S(1) [θ
E
≈318 K; 290 K (C/T)] and Fe–Ti(1) [θ
E
≈218 K; 190 K (C/T)]. In addition to the structural and local vibrational
measurements, we probed the magnetic properties using magneto-calorimetry,
magnetometry under applied pressure, magnetoresistance (MR), and Hall
effect measurements. We observed the appearance of a broad peak in
the specific heat around 120 K in the x = 0.42 compound
that we associated with an antiferromagnetic ordering electronic transition.
We found that the antiferromagnetic transition temperature is pressure
and composition sensitive and reduces at 1.2 GPa by ∼12 and
∼3 K, for the members with x = 0.24 and x = 0.42, respectively. Similarly, the saturation magnetization
in the ordered phase depends on both pressure and iron content, reducing
its value by 50, 90, and 30% for x = 0.24, 0.32,
and 0.42, respectively. We observed clear jumps in the magnetic hysteresis
loops, MR, and anomalous Hall effect (AHE) below 2 K at fields around
2–4 T. We associated this observation with the metamagnetic
transitions; from the Berry-curvature a decoupling parameter of S
H = 0.12 V–1 is determined.
Comparison of the results on the temperature-dependent magnetization,
MR, and AHE elucidates a strong inelastic scattering contribution
to the AHE at higher temperatures due to the cluster spin-glass phase.