In-plane uniaxial pressure-induced out-of-plane antiferromagnetic moment and critical fluctuations in BaFe2As2

A small in-plane external uniaxial pressure has been widely used as an effective method to acquire single domain iron pnictide BaFe2As2, which exhibits twin-domains without uniaxial strain below the tetragonal-to-orthorhombic structural (nematic) transition temperature Ts. Although it is generally assumed that such a pressure will not affect the intrinsic electronic/magnetic properties of the system, it is known to enhance the antiferromagnetic (AF) ordering temperature TN ( < Ts) and create in-plane resistivity anisotropy above Ts. Here we use neutron polarization analysis to show that such a strain on BaFe2As2 also induces a static or quasi-static out-of-plane (c-axis) AF order and its associated critical spin fluctuations near TN/Ts. Therefore, uniaxial pressure necessary to detwin single crystals of BaFe2As2 actually rotates the easy axis of the collinear AF order near TN/Ts, and such effects due to spin-orbit coupling must be taken into account to unveil the intrinsic electronic/magnetic properties of the system.

Type

Journal article

Citation

Liu, Panpan, Klemm, Mason L., Tian, Long, et al.. "In-plane uniaxial pressure-induced out-of-plane antiferromagnetic moment and critical fluctuations in BaFe2As2." Nature Communications, 11, (2020) Springer Nature: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19421-5.

Published Version

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19421-5

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