The role of erbium magnetization anisotropy during the magnetic reorientation transition in ErFeO3

Abstract

Magnetization of ErFeO3 single crystal was measured by a super conducting quantum interference device magnetometer with greatly improved precision. A dramatic (70%) increase of magnetization was observed in the spin-reorientation interval (88–97 K). This and the temperature dependence of the spin-rotation angle are accurately described by the modified mean field theory, which uses the key fact of the magnetic anisotropy of erbium subsystem. Calculated temperature dependence of the rotation angle shows a remarkable correspondence with the experiment with no fitting parameters. Proposed model is general and can be used to analyze orientation transitions in many orthoferrites.

The influence of growth rate on the microstructural and magnetic properties of float-zone grown crystals

“…While recently published work on the magnetic properties of ErFeO 3 [39] has indicated that the room temperature axis of magnetization changed after swift heavy ion irradiation (a similar flipping of the easy axis upon cooling below approximately 90 K is well documented [4]), no such effect was found in the present work between 'good' crystals and those containing second phase inclusions. It should be noted, however, that the damage caused to the lattice by such irradiation is significantly greater than any effects associated with the presence of inclusions, which do not influence the crystallinity of the orthoferrite matrix.…”

“…They found that crystals grown at rates above 20 mm/h had cracks in the centre of the crystals and although no second phases were detected, the crystals included low angle grain boundaries and laminar twins. Bazaliy et al [4] and some other groups [31,32] have also used single crystals of orthoferrites, which they reported as being grown by the floating zone method, although they did not give details of the actual growth conditions or the qualities of the crystals used. Indeed, despite the current popularity of float zoning for crystal growth of oxide materials (in particular using infrared image furnaces), to the best of the authors' knowledge, no comprehensive studies have been reported on the growth and characterization of orthoferrite single crystals using this technique.…”

“…see Refs. [1,2,4,[22][23][24]), although it is planned to extend the work to other rareearth orthoferrites.…”

“…These materials have attracted interest since the 1950s due to their novel magnetic and magneto-optic properties and are still the subject of much research aimed at a better understanding of properties of the magnetic subsystems and how interactions between them depend on external parameters, such as temperature, field, pressure, etc. [1][2][3][4].…”

Laser-induced ultrafast spin dynamics in ErFeO3

“…It is not straightforward to accurately determine the temperature increase from the Faraday rotation of the probe. Factors responsible for this are a slightly nonlinear behavior of the spin rotation with temperature, 34 an increase in the magnetization by 70% in the interval of the SRT, 34 the nonlinear relationship between the rotation angle and the component of magnetization that we measure and finally, the inhomogeneous fluence across the sample thickness due to absorption. Nevertheless, the qualitative agreement between the model and the measurements is striking.…”