Chemistry and Physics Faculty Articles
Title
Field-Induced Spin-Flop in Antiferromagnetic Semiconductors with Commensurate and Incommensurate Magnetic Structures: Li2FeGeS4 (LIGS) and Li2FeSnS4 (LITS)
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-14-2014
Publication Title
Inorganic Chemistry
ISSN
0020-1669
Volume
53
Issue/No.
23
First Page
12265
Last Page
12274
Abstract
Li2FeGeS4 (LIGS) and Li2FeSnS4 (LITS), which are among the first magnetic semiconductors with the wurtz-kesterite structure, exhibit antiferromagnetism with TN ≈ 6 and 4 K, respectively. Both compounds undergo a conventional metamagnetic transition that is accompanied by a hysteresis; a reversible spin-flop transition is dominant. On the basis of constant-wavelength neutron powder diffraction data, we propose that LIGS and LITS exhibit collinear magnetic structures that are commensurate and incommensurate with propagation vectors km = [1/2, 1/2, 1/2] and [0, 0, 0.546(1)], respectively. The two compounds exhibit similar magnetic phase diagrams, as the critical fields are temperature-dependent. The nuclear structures of the bulk powder samples were verified using time-of-flight neutron powder diffraction along with synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction. 57Fe and 119Sn Mössbauer spectroscopy confirmed the presence of Fe2+ and Sn4+ as well as the number of crystallographically unique positions. LIGS and LITS are semiconductors with indirect and direct bandgaps of 1.42 and 1.86 eV, respectively, according to optical diffuse-reflectance UV–vis–NIR spectroscopy.
NSUWorks Citation
Brant, J. A., dela Cruz, C., Yao, J., Douvalis, A. P., Bakas, T., Sorescu, M., & Aitken, J. A. (2014). Field-Induced Spin-Flop in Antiferromagnetic Semiconductors with Commensurate and Incommensurate Magnetic Structures: Li2FeGeS4 (LIGS) and Li2FeSnS4 (LITS). Inorganic Chemistry, 53, (23), 12265 - 12274. https://doi.org/10.1021/ic5011693. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cnso_chemphys_facarticles/168
ORCID ID
0000-0001-7825-8667
DOI
10.1021/ic5011693
