Journal article
Understanding unconventional magnetic order in a candidate axion insulator by resonant elastic x-ray scattering
- Abstract:
- Magnetic topological insulators and semimetals are a class of crystalline solids whose properties are strongly influenced by the coupling between non-trivial electronic topology and magnetic spin configurations. Such materials can host exotic electromagnetic responses. Among these are topological insulators with certain types of antiferromagnetic order which are predicted to realize axion electrodynamics. Here we investigate the highly unusual helimagnetic phases recently reported in EuIn2As2, which has been identified as a candidate for an axion insulator. Using resonant elastic x-ray scattering we show that the two types of magnetic order observed in EuIn2As2 are spatially uniform phases with commensurate chiral magnetic structures, ruling out a possible phase-separation scenario, and we propose that entropy associated with low energy spin fluctuations plays a significant role in driving the phase transition between them. Our results establish that the magnetic order in EuIn2As2 satisfies the symmetry requirements for an axion insulator.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.4MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41467-023-39138-5
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature Communications More from this journal
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 3387
- Publication date:
- 2023-06-09
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-05-30
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2041-1723
- Language:
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English
- Pubs id:
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1347363
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1347363
- Deposit date:
-
2023-05-30
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Soh et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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