Vacancy-driven orbital and magnetic order in (K,Tl,Cs)yFe 2-xSe2

Weicheng Lv, Wei Cheng Lee, Philip Phillips

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We investigate the effects of the √5×√5 Fe vacancy ordering on the orbital and magnetic order in (K,Tl,Cs)yFe 2-xSe2 using a three-orbital (t2g) tight-binding Hamiltonian with generalized Hubbard interactions. We find that vacancy order enhances electron correlations, resulting in the onset of a block antiferromagnetic phase with large moments at smaller interaction strengths. In addition, vacancy ordering modulates the kinetic energy differently for the three t2g orbitals. This results in a breaking of the degeneracy between the dxz and dyz orbitals on each Fe site, and the onset of orbital order. Consequently, we obtain a novel inverse relation between orbital polarization and the magnetic moment. We predict that a transition from high-spin to low-spin states accompanied by a crossover from orbitally-disordered to orbitally-ordered states will be driven by doping the parent compound with electrons, which can be verified by neutron scattering and soft x-ray measurements.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number155107
JournalPhysical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics
Volume84
Issue number15
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 11 2011

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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