Controllable emergent spatial spin modulation in Sr2IrO4 by in situ shear strain

Abstract

Symmetric anisotropic interaction can be ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic at the same time but for different crystallographic axes. We show that inducing competition of anisotropic interactions of orthogonal irreducible representations represents a general route to obtain new exotic magnetic states. We demonstrate it here by observing the emergence of a continuously tunable 12-layer spatial spin modulation when distorting the square lattice planes in the quasi-2D antiferromagnetic Sr2IrO4 under in situ shear strain. This translation-symmetry-breaking phase is a result of an unusual strain activated anisotropic interaction which is at the 4th order and competing with the inherent quadratic anisotropic interaction. Such a mechanism of competing anisotropy is distinct from that among the ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, and/or the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions, and it could be widely applicable and highly controllable in low dimensional magnets.

References in corpus (16)

• Mott Insulators in the Strong Spin-Orbit Coupling Limit: From Heisenberg to a Quantum Compass and Kitaev Models
• Novel Jeff = 1/2 Mott State Induced by Relativistic Spin-Orbit Coupling in Sr2IrO4
• Skyrmions in Magnetic Multilayers
• Bandwidth-Controlled Insulator-Metal Transition and Correlated Metallic State in 5$d$ Transition Metal Oxides Sr${}_{n+1}$Ir${}_n$O${}_{3n+1}$ ($n$=1, 2, and $\infty$)
• Twisted Hubbard Model for Sr2IrO4: Magnetism and Possible High Temperature Superconductivity
• Nematic and meta-nematic transitions in the iron pnictides
• Fermi Arcs in a Doped Pseudospin-1/2 Heisenberg Antiferromagnet
• The magnetic and crystal structures of Sr2IrO4: A neutron diffraction study
• Microscopic study of spin-orbit-induced Mott insulator in Ir oxides
• Robustness of basal-plane antiferromagnetic order and the $J_{eff}=1/2$ state in single-layer iridate spin-orbit Mott insulators
• Square Lattice Iridates
• A structural distortion induced magneto-elastic locking in Sr${}_2$IrO${}_4$ revealed through nonlinear optical harmonic generation
• Giant anisotropic magnetoresistance and nonvolatile memory in canted antiferromagnet Sr2IrO4
• Anisotropic magnetoresistance in antiferromagnetic Sr2IrO4
• Strain-engineering of the charge and spin-orbital interactions in Sr2IrO4
• Model analysis of magnetic susceptibility of Sr${}_2$IrO${}_4$ - 2D $J_{\mathrm{eff}}$ = 1/2 Heisenberg system with competing interlayer couplings

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Probing ice-rule-breaking transition in $\mathrm{D}{\mathrm{y}}_2\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{i}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_7$ thin film by proximitized transport and magnetic torque
• Remarks on Baby Skyrmion Lie-Algebraic Generalization
• Outstanding TC Enhancement in 5d-3d Y2NiIrO6 by Compression