paper

Establishing magneto-structural relationships in the solid solutions of the skyrmion hosting family of materials: GaV $_{4}$ S $_{8 - y}$ Se $_{y}$

arXiv:2005.00413 · doi:10.1038/s41598-020-65676-9

Abstract

The GaV $_{4}$ S $_{8 - y}$ Se $_{y}$ $(y = 0$ to $8)$ family of materials have been synthesized in both polycrystalline and single crystal form, and their structural and magnetic properties thoroughly investigated. Each of these materials crystallizes in the $F 4 ˉ 3 m$ space group at ambient temperature. However, in contrast to the end members GaV $_{4}$ S $_{8}$ and GaV $_{4}$ Se $_{8}$ , that undergo a structural transition to the $R 3 m$ space group at 42 and 41 K respectively, the solid solutions $(y = 1$ to $7)$ retain cubic symmetry down to 1.5 K. In zero applied field the end members of the family order ferromagnetically at 13 K (GaV $_{4}$ S $_{8}$ ) and 18 K (GaV $_{4}$ Se $_{8}$ ), while the intermediate compounds exhibit a spin-glass-like ground state. We demonstrate that the magnetic structure of GaV $_{4}$ S $_{8}$ shows localization of spins on the V cations, indicating that a charge ordering mechanism drives the structural phase transition. We conclude that the observation of both structural and ferromagnetic transitions in the end members of the series in zero field is a prerequisite for the stabilization of a skyrmion phase, and discuss how the absence of these transitions in the $y = 1$ to $7$ materials can be explained by their structural properties.

Main text: 14 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. Supplementary information: 10 pages, 6 figures, 6 tables

Establishing magneto-structural relationships in the solid solutions of the skyrmion hosting family of materials: GaV4​S8−y​Sey​

Abstract

Establishing magneto-structural relationships in the solid solutions of the skyrmion hosting family of materials: GaV $_{4}$ S $_{8 - y}$ Se $_{y}$