# Orphan spins in the S=5/2 antiferromagnet CaFe2O4

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

## Authors

• C. Stock
• E. E. Rodriguez
• N. Lee
• F. Demmel
• P. Fouquet
• Ch Niedermayer
• Y. Su
• K. Nemkovski
• M A. Green
• J. A. Rodriguez-Rivera
• J. W. Kim
• L. Zhang
• S. -W. Cheong

## Abstract

CaFe$_{2}$O$_{4}$ is an anisotropic $S={5\over 2}$ antiferromagnet with two competing $A$ ($\uparrow \uparrow \downarrow \downarrow$) and $B$ ($\uparrow \downarrow \uparrow \downarrow$) magnetic order parameters separated by static antiphase boundaries at low temperatures. Neutron diffraction and bulk susceptibility measurements, show that the spins near these boundaries are weakly correlated and a carry an uncompensated ferromagnetic moment that can be tuned with a magnetic field. Spectroscopic measurements find these spins are bound with excitation energies less than the bulk magnetic spin-waves and resemble the spectra from isolated spin-clusters. Localized bound orphaned spins separate the two competing magnetic order parameters in CaFe$_{2}$O$_{4}$.

## Bibliographic note

(main text - 5 pages, 4 figures; supplementary information - 4 pages, 6 figures, to be published in Physical Review Letters). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1606.04243

## Details

Original language English Physical Review Letters 119 25 Published - 22 Dec 2017

## Keywords

• cond-mat.mtrl-sci, cond-mat.str-el