Weak antiferromagnetic ordering induced by Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and pure magnetic reflections in MnSi-type crystals

Phys Rev Lett. 2012 May 4;108(18):187203. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.187203. Epub 2012 May 2.

Abstract

A symmetry analysis of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction in MnSi-type crystals reveals a nontrivial antiferromagnetic pattern of tilted Mn moments remaining even after an unwinding of the ground-state helix by a strong magnetic field. The remaining tilts are caused by that component of the DM vector which is perpendicular to the component responsible for helical spiraling; both components are evaluated and related to the atomic structure using a simple model. It is shown that the tilting should induce pure magnetic reflections 00ℓ(ℓ=2n+1) in neutron or x-ray magnetic scattering. In addition, the DM-induced antiferromagnetic ordering is important for the core structure of intrinsic defects, for the spectra of magnetic resonances, and generally for a better understanding of spin-orbit interaction in this type of magnetics.