Amplitude mode in the planar triangular antiferromagnet Na0.9MnO2

Rebecca L Dally; Yang Zhao; Zhijun Xu; Robin Chisnell; M B Stone; Jeffrey W Lynn; Leon Balents; Stephen D Wilson

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04601-1

Amplitude mode in the planar triangular antiferromagnet Na_0.9MnO₂

Nat Commun. 2018 Jun 5;9(1):2188. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04601-1.

Authors

Rebecca L Dally^{1

2}, Yang Zhao^{3

4}, Zhijun Xu^{3

4}, Robin Chisnell³, M B Stone⁵, Jeffrey W Lynn³, Leon Balents⁶, Stephen D Wilson⁷

Affiliations

¹ Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA.
² Department of Physics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, 02467, USA.
³ NIST Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, 20899, USA.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
⁵ Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831, USA.
⁶ Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA.
⁷ Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA. stephendwilson@ucsb.edu.

Abstract

Amplitude modes arising from symmetry breaking in materials are of broad interest in condensed matter physics. These modes reflect an oscillation in the amplitude of a complex order parameter, yet are typically unstable and decay into oscillations of the order parameter's phase. This renders stable amplitude modes rare, and exotic effects in quantum antiferromagnets have historically provided a realm for their detection. Here we report an alternate route to realizing amplitude modes in magnetic materials by demonstrating that an antiferromagnet on a two-dimensional anisotropic triangular lattice (α-Na_0.9MnO₂) exhibits a long-lived, coherent oscillation of its staggered magnetization field. Our results show that geometric frustration of Heisenberg spins with uniaxial single-ion anisotropy can renormalize the interactions of a dense two-dimensional network of moments into largely decoupled, one-dimensional chains that manifest a longitudinally polarized-bound state. This bound state is driven by the Ising-like anisotropy inherent to the Mn³⁺ ions of this compound.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.