We present results of single crystal neutron diffraction experiments on the rare-earth, half-Heusler antiferromagnet (AFM) NdBiPt. This compound exhibits an AFM phase transition at TN=2.18~K with an ordered moment of 1.78(9)~μB per Nd atom. The magnetic moments are aligned along the [001]-direction, arranged in a type-I AFM structure with ferromagnetic planes, alternating antiferromagnetically along a propagation vector τ of (100). The RBiPt (R= Ce-Lu) family of materials has been proposed as candidates of a new family of antiferromagnetic topological insulators (AFTI) with magnetic space group that corresponds to a type-II AFM structure where ferromagnetic sheets are stacked along the space diagonal. The resolved structure makes it unlikely, that NdBiPt qualifies as an AFTI.
@article{arxiv.1503.04487,
title = {Magnetic structure of the antiferromagnetic half-Heusler compound NdBiPt},
author = {R. A. Mueller and A. Desilets-Benoit and N. Gauthier and L. Lapointe and A. D. Bianchi and T. Maris and R. Zahn and R. Beyer and E. Green and J. Wosnitza and Z. Yamani and M. Kenzelmann},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.04487},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
As resubmitted to PRB, corrected typos and changed symbols in Fig. 3