A4: Imaging mesoscale magnetic textures in topological magnets
István Kézsmárki, Kai Litzius
In this project we study materials, like the Weyl semimetals Fe3Sn2 and Co3Sn2S2, where changes in the magnetic state are expected to strongly influence the topological features of bulk electronic and/or magnon bands as well as affect topologically protected surface states. Our mission is to image magnetic textures emerging in these materials, and their dependence on temperature, magnetic field and sample geometry, using magnetic force microscopy and scanning transmission X-ray microscopy. These techniques offer complementing abilities to image both bulk and surface states. Our results about the variation of the magnetization on the mesoscale will be crucial for other experimental and theoretical projects aiming to explore topological bulk and surface states in these materials.
Publications
2023 |
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Prodan, L.; Evans, D. M.; Griffin, S. M.; Oestlin, A.; Altthaler, M.; Lysne, E.; Filippova, I. G.; Shova, S.; Chioncel, L.; Tsurkan, V.; Kézsmárki, I. Large ordered moment with strong easy-plane anisotropy and vortex-domain pattern in the kagome ferromagnet Fe3Sn Journal Article Appl. Phys. Lett. 123, 021901, 2023. @article{prodan_large_2023, We report the magnetic anisotropy of kagome bilayer ferromagnet Fe3Sn probed by the bulk magnetometry and magnetic force microscopy (MFM) on high-quality single crystals. The dependence of magnetization on the orientation of the external magnetic field reveals strong easyplane magnetocrystalline anisotropy and anisotropy of the saturation magnetization. The leading magnetocrystalline anisotropy constant shows a monotonous increase from K-1 approximate to -1.0 x 10(6) J/m(3) at 300K to -1.3 x 10(6) J/m(3) at 2K. Our ab initio electronic structure calculations yield the value of total magnetic moment of 7.1 mu(B)=f.u. and a magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy density of -0.57meV=f.u. (-1.62 x 10(6)J/m(3)) both being in reasonable agreement with the experimental values. The MFM imaging reveals micrometer-scale magnetic vortices with weakly pinned cores that vanish at the saturation field of similar to 3T applied perpendicular to the kagome plane. The observed vortex-domain structure is well reproduced by the micromagnetic simulations, using the experimentally determined value of the anisotropy and exchange stiffness. (c) 2023 Author(s). |