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Spin and charge density waves in quasi-one-dimensional KMn6Bi5

Jin-Ke Bao1,2,3, Huibo Cao4, Matthew J. Krogstad1,5, Keith M. Taddei4, Chenfei Shi2, Shixun Cao2,3, Saul H. Lapidus5, Sander van Smaalen6, Duck Young Chung1 et al.

Mercouri G. Kanatzidis1,7, Stephan Rosenkranz1, and Omar Chmaissem1,8,*

  • 1Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 2Department of Physics, Materials Genome Institute and International Center for Quantum and Molecular Structures, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
  • 3Shanghai Key Laboratory of High Temperature Superconductors, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
  • 4Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA
  • 5Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA
  • 6Laboratory of Crystallography, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth 95447, Germany
  • 7Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA
  • 8Department of Physics, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115, USA

  • *Corresponding author: chmaissem@anl.gov

Phys. Rev. B 106, L201111 – Published 23 November, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.L201111

Abstract

The recent observation that pressure could suppress antiferromagnetic (AFM) order in quasi-one-dimensional AMn6Bi5 Mn-cluster chain materials (A=Na, K, Rb, and Cs) and lead to a superconducting dome offers an alternative Mn-based class of materials with which to study unconventional superconductivity. Using neutron diffraction, we elucidate the exact nature of the previously unknown AFM ground state of KMn6Bi5 and report finding transverse incommensurate spin density waves (SDWs) for the Mn atoms with a propagating direction along the chains. The SDWs have distinct refined amplitudes of ∼2.46μB for the Mn atoms in the pentagons and ∼0.29μB with a large standard deviation for Mn atoms at the center between the pentagons. AFM coupling dominates both the nearest-neighbor Mn-Mn interactions within the pentagon and next-nearest-neighbor Mn-Mn interactions out of the pentagon (along the propagating wave). The SDWs exhibit both local and itinerant characteristics potentially due to cooperative interactions between local magnetic exchange and conduction electrons. Single crystal x-ray diffraction below the AFM transition revealed satellite peaks originating from charge density waves along the chain direction with a q vector twice as large as that of the SDW, pointing to a strong real space coupling between them. Additionally, we report a significant magnetoelastic effect during the AFM transition, especially along the chain direction, observed in temperature-dependent x-ray powder diffraction. Our work not only reveals fascinating intertwined spin, charge, and lattice orders in one-dimensional KMn6Bi5, but also provides an essential piece of information on its magnetic structure to understand the mechanism of superconductivity in this Mn-based family.

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