We investigate the spin-stripe mechanism responsible for the peculiar nanometer modulation of the incommensurate magnetic order that emerges between the vector-chiral and the spin-density-wave phase in the frustrated zigzag spin-1/2 chain compound β-TeVO4. A combination of magnetic-torque, neutron-diffraction and spherical-neutron-polarimetry measurements is employed to determine the complex magnetic structures of all three ordered phases. Based on these results, we develop a simple phenomenological model, which exposes the exchange anisotropy as the key ingredient for the spin-stripe formation in frustrated spin systems.
@article{arxiv.1608.04495,
title = {Exchange anisotropy as mechanism for spin-stripe formation in frustrated spin chains},
author = {M. Pregelj and O. Zaharko and M. Herak and M. Gomilsek and A. Zorko and L. C. Chapon and F. Bourdarot and H. Berger and D. Arčon},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.04495},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
4 pages + supplementary material, published version (PRB Rapid Communications)