Origin of Ising magnetism in Ca3Co2O6 unveiled by orbital imaging

Abstract

The one-dimensional cobaltate Ca3Co2O6 is an intriguing material having an unconventional magnetic structure, displaying quantum tunneling phenomena in its magnetization. Using a newly developed experimental method, s-core-level non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (s-NIXS), we were able to image the atomic Co 3d orbital that is responsible for the Ising magnetism in this system. We show that we can directly observe that it is the complex d2 orbital occupied by the sixth electron at the high-spin Co-trig{3+} (d6) sites that generates this behavior. This is extremely rare in the research field of transition metal compounds, and is only made possible by the delicately balanced prismatic trigonal coordination. The ability to directly relate the orbital occupation with the local crystal structure is essential to model the magnetic properties of this system.

References in corpus (8)

• Valence, spin, and orbital state of the Co ions in the one-dimensional Ca3Co2O6: an x-ray absorption and magnetic circular dichroism study
• Nature of magnetism in Ca${}_3$Co${}_2$O${}_6$
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• Incommensurate magnetic ground state revealed by RXS in the frustrated spin system Ca3Co2O6
• Formation of Magnetic Microphases in Ca${}_3$Co${}_2$O${}_6$
• Direct imaging of orbitals in quantum materials

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Reaching the equilibrium state of frustrated triangular Ising magnet Ca3Co2O6
• Emergent 1/3 magnetization plateaus in pyroxene CoGeO${}_3$
• Peculiar magnetic dynamics across the in-field transition in Ca3Co2O6
• Selective orbital imaging of excited states with x-ray spectroscopy: the example of $\alpha$-MnS