We report an optimized chemical vapor transport method, which allows growing FeP single crystals up to 500 mg in mass and 80 mm3 in volume. The high quality of the crystals obtained by this method was confirmed by means of EDX, high-resolution TEM, low-temperature single crystal XRD and neutron diffraction experiments. We investigated the transport and magnetic properties of the single crystals and calculated the electronic band structure of FeP. We show both theoretically and experimentally, that the ground state of FeP is metallic. The examination of the magnetic data reveals antiferromagnetic order below TN =119 K while transport remains metallic in both the paramagnetic and the antiferromagnetic phase. The analysis of the neutron diffraction data shows an incommensurate magnetic structure with the propagation vector Q=(0, 0, ±δ), where δ∼ 0.2. For the full understanding of the magnetic state, further experiments are needed. The successful growth of large high-quality single crystals opens the opportunity for further investigations of itinerant magnets with incommensurate spin structures using a wide range of experimental tools.
@article{arxiv.2003.10968,
title = {The incommensurate magnet iron monophosphide FeP: Crystal growth and characterization},
author = {I. O. Chernyavskii and S. E. Nikitin and Y. A. Onykiienko and D. S. Inosov and Q. Stahl and J. Geck and X. C. Hong and C. Hess and S. Gaß and A. U. B. Wolter and D. Wolf and A. Lubk and D. V. Efremov and F. Yokaichiya and S. Aswartham and B. Büchner and I. V. Morozov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.10968},
year = {2020}
}