- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review B

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Magnetic structure of the kagome metal YbFe6Ge6 in view of Bragg diffraction

S. W. Lovesey

  • ISIS Facility, STFC, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, United Kingdom; Diamond Light Source, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, United Kingdom; and Department of Physics, Oxford University, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom

PDF

Phys. Rev. B 112, 144402 – Published 1 October, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rn9y-6spg

Abstract

A material in possession of localized 4f-electron magnetism and delocalized 3d-electron or band magnetism can often present enigmatic physical phenomena, and there has been a longstanding interest in the kagome metal YbFe6Ge6. More recently, because of an investigation of a so-called anomalous Hall effect, or topological Hall effect, and magnetic neutron Bragg diffraction [Yao et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 186501 (2025)]. Iron moments in the two-dimensional layers of a hexagonal nuclear structure undergo collinear antiferromagnetic order below a temperature ≈500 K. The moments depart from the c axis in a spontaneous transition at ≈63 K to an orthorhombic structure. The magnetism of Yb ions appears to behave independently, which can be confirmed using resonant x-ray Bragg diffraction enhanced by a Fe atomic resonance. The inferred magnetic structure is P(parity)T(time)-symmetric (anti-inversion 1′¯) collinear antiferromagnetism that does not couple to circular polarization (helicity) in primary x-rays, unlike altermagnetism. A linear magnetoelectric effect is allowed, and Kerr rotation and the piezomagnetic effect are forbidden. Symmetry informed Bragg diffraction patterns for future x-ray and neutron experiments are shown to be rich in Fe magnetic properties of orthorhombic YbFe6Ge6, including space-spin correlations, anapoles, and Dirac quadrupoles familiar in high-Tc ceramic superconductors.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (22)

  1. T. Mazet and B. J. Malaman, Evidence of spin reorientation in YbFe6Ge6 from neutron diffraction and Fe57 Mössbauer experiments, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 12, 1085 (2000).
  2. M. A. Avila, T. Takabatake, Y. Takahashi, S. L. Bud'ko, and P. C. Canfield, Direct observation of Fe spin reorientation in single-crystalline YbFe6Ge6, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 17, 6969 (2005).
  3. J. M. Cadogan and D. H. Ryan, A study on the magnetic behaviour of polymorphic YbFe6Ge6, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 22, 016009 (2010).
  4. W. Yao et al., Anomalous electrical transport in the kagome magnet YbFe6Ge6, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 186501 (2025).
  5. P. J. Brown, J. B. Forsyth, E. Lelièvre-Berna, and F. Tasset, Determination of the magnetization distribution in Cr2O3 using spherical neutron polarimetry, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 14, 1957 (2002).
  6. V. Scagnoli and S. W. Lovesey, Analysis of azimuthal-angle scans in resonant x-ray Bragg diffraction and parity even and odd atomic multipoles in the multiferroic modification of the terbium manganate TbMnO3, Phys. Rev. B 79, 035111 (2009).
  7. S. W. Lovesey and D. D. Khalyavin, Neutron scattering by Dirac multipoles, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 29, 215603 (2017).
  8. We use the Belov-Neronova-Smirnova [BNS] setting of magnetic space groups, see Bilbao Crystallographic server, http://www.cryst.ehu.es.
  9. J. Orenstein, Optical nonreciprocity in magnetic structures related to high-Tc superconductors, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 067002 (2011).
  10. J. Fernández-Rodríguez, S. W. Lovesey, and J. A. Blanco, Polarization analysis in resonant x-ray Bragg diffraction by K2CrO4 at the Cr K-edge, Phys. Rev. B 77, 094441 (2008).
  11. A. T. Schmitt, Y. Joly, K. S. Schulze, B. Marx-Glowna, I. Uschmann, B. Grabiger, H. Bernhardt, R. Loetzsch, A. Juhin, and J. Debray, Disentangling x-ray dichroism and birefringence via high-purity polarimetry, Optica 8, 56 (2021).
  12. S. W. Lovesey and E. Balcar, A guide to electronic multipoles in photon scattering and absorption, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 82, 021008 (2013).
  13. C. G. Shull and Y. Yamada, Proceedings of the International Conference on Magnetism and Crystallography, Eyoto, 1961 (Phys. Soc. Jpn., 1962); C. G. Shull, Electronic Structure and Alloy Chemistry of the Transition Elements (Interscience, New York, 1963), p. 69.
  14. O. Bunău, A. Y. Ramos, and Y. Joly, The FDMNES Code in International Tables for Crystallography (Wiley, New York, 2022), Vol. 1.
  15. E. N. Ovchinnikova, A. P. Oreshko, and V. E. Dmitrienko, Interference phenomena in X-ray diffraction spectroscopy, Phys. Usp. 68, 393 (2025).
  16. S. Hayami, Field-induced ferroaxiality in antiferromagnets with magnetic toroidal quadrupole, Condens. Matter 10, 35 (2025).
  17. L. V. Pourovskii, D. F. Mosca, L. Celiberti, S. Khmelevskyi, A. Paramekanti, and C. Franchini, Hidden orders in spin–orbit-entangled correlated insulators, Nat. Rev. Mater. 10, 674 (2025).
  18. R. Tamang, S. Gurung, D. P. Rai, S. Brahimi, and S. Lounis, Altermagnetism and altermagnets, Magnetism 5, 17 (2025).
  19. R. Winkler and U. Zülicke, Standard model of electromagnetism and chirality in crystals, arXiv:2405.20940.
  20. P. J. Brown, Magnetization distributions, Int. J. Mod. Phys. 7, 3029 (1993).
  21. J. Fernández-Rodríguez, V. Scagnoli, C. Mazzoli, F. Fabrizi, S. W. Lovesey, J. A. Blanco, D. S. Sivia, K. S. Knight, F. de Bergevin, and L. Paolasini, Experimental evidence of anapolar moments in the antiferromagnetic insulating phase of V2O3 obtained from x-ray resonant Bragg diffraction, Phys. Rev. B 81, 085107 (2010).
  22. A. Rodríguez-Fernández, J. A. Blanco, S. W. Lovesey, V. Scagnoli, U. Staub, H. C. Walker, D. K. Shukla, and J. Strempfer, Chiral properties of hematite α-Fe2O3 inferred from resonant Bragg diffraction using circularly polarized x rays, Phys. Rev. B 88, 094437 (2013).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. B 112, 144402– Published 1 October, 2025
  • Received 8 June 2025
  • Revised 10 August 2025
  • Accepted 16 September 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation