Skip to main content
  • Paul Scherrer Institut PSI
  • PSI Research, Labs & User Services

Digital User Office

  • Digital User Office
  • DE
  • EN
  • FR
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)
Search
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)

Hauptnavigation

  • Research at PSIOpen mainmenu item
    • Research Initiatives
    • Ethics and Research integrity
    • Scientific Highlights
    • Scientific Events
    • Scientific Career
    • PSI-FELLOW
    • PSI Data Policy
  • Research Divisions and LabsOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Research with Neutrons and Muons
    • Photon Science
    • Energy and Environment
    • Nuclear Energy and Safety
    • Biology and Chemistry
    • Scientific Computing, Theory and Data
    • Large Research Facilities
  • Facilities and InstrumentsOpen mainmenu item
    • Overview
    • Large Research Facilities
    • Facilities
    • PSI Facility Newsletter
  • PSI User ServicesOpen mainmenu item
    • User Office
    • Methods at the PSI User Facilities
    • Proposals for beam time
    • Proposal Deadlines
    • Data Analysis Service (PSD)
    • EU support programmes
  • New ProjectsOpen mainmenu item
    • SLS 2.0
    • IMPACT
  • DE
  • EN
  • FR

Digital User Office (mobile)

  • Digital User Office

You are here:

  1. PSI Home
  2. Labs & User Services
  3. PSD
  4. LSC
  5. MICMAG Group
  6. Scientific Highlights and News
  7. Unusual ferrimagnetism in CaFe2O4

Secondary navigation

Microscopy & Magnetism Group

  • People
  • Research
  • Scientific Highlights and News Expanded submenu item
    • Scientific Highlights 2014 and earlier
  • MM Workshop
  • Publications
9 January 2023

Unusual ferrimagnetism in CaFe2O4

Ferrimagnetism is one of the magnetic states where the populations or amplitudes of collinear antiparallel spins are different and result in a net magnetization. Such a state is, so far, known to arise when two antiparallel sublattices are composed of (i) different magnetic elements, (ii) different valences of a magnetic element, and/or (iii) different numbers of a magnetic element(s).

Magnetic structure of the ferrimagnetic state of CaFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub>
(a) Magnetic structure of the ferrimagnetic state of CaFe2O4, where two different Fe3+ sites (represented by a number, 1 or 2) form antiparallel spin sublattices. (b) Experimental data (black) and simulation (red) of an XMCD spectrum, which is decomposed into (c) two contributions from the different Fe3+ sites. (d) Hysteresis curves for two Fe3+ sites obtained by simulating XMCD data as in (c).

In this study, we discovered a ferrimagnetic state due to a distinct origin from the above; two antiparallel sublattices are composed of (iii) the same number of (i) a single magnetic element (ii) having the same nominal valence but sitting on different crystallographic sites. We used X-ray magnetic circular dichroism together with resonant X-ray diffraction, enabling site-specific investigation of magnetism. As a result, we successfully demonstrate the interesting ferrimagnetic state in CaFe2O4. Two different Fe3+ sites having the same number of antiparallel spins (S = 5/2) and slightly different local coordination environments are found to host a net magnetization that has a significantly large coercive field despite the expected small magnetic anisotropy of the high-spin configuration of Fe3+. The newly found ferrimagnetic state is switchable between two magnetic domain states as in ferromagnets and possesses the characteristic features of antiferromagnets, such as the robustness for an external magnetic field and high resonant frequency, which have recently motivated researchers to develop spintronics based on antiferromagnets. Hence, our result can be relevant to future spintronics applications.

Contact

Dr Hiroki Ueda
Microscopy and Magnetism Group

Paul Scherrer Institute, Forschungsstrasse 111, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
Telephone: +41 56 310 34 90
E-mail: hiroki.ueda@psi.ch

Dr Elizabeth Skoropata
Microscopy and Magnetism Group
Paul Scherrer Institute, Forschungsstrasse 111, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
Telephone: +41 56 310 56 89
E-mail: elizabeth.skoropata@psi.ch

Dr Urs Staub
Head of Microscopy and Magnetism Group
Paul Scherrer Institute, Forschungsstrasse 111, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
Telephone: +41 56 310 44 94
E-mail: urs.staub@psi.ch

Original Publication

Unusual ferrimagnetism in CaFe2O4
H. Ueda , E. Skoropata , C. Piamonteze , N. Ortiz Hernández , M. Burian, Y. Tanaka, C. Klauser, S. Damerio, B.  Noheda and Urs Staub
Phys. Rev. Materials, 6, 124405 (December 2022)
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.6.124405

Sidebar

PSI Scientific Reports

Archive 2006-2012. The Scientific Reports – containing accounts of research topics from all the different areas – provide an impression of the variety of subjects researched at PSI.

top

Footer

Paul Scherrer Institut

Forschungsstrasse 111
5232 Villigen PSI
Switzerland

Telephone: +41 56 310 21 11
Telefax: +41 56 310 21 99

How to find us
Contact

Visitor Centre psi forum
School Lab iLab (in German)
Center for Proton Therapy
PSI Education Centre
PSI Guest House
PSI Gastronomie (in German)
psi forum shop

Service & Support

  • Phone Book
  • User Office
  • Accelerator Status
  • PSI Publications
  • Suppliers
  • E-Billing
  • Computing
  • Safety (in German)

Career

  • Working at PSI
  • Job Opportunities
  • Training and further education
  • Career Center
  • Vocational Training (in German)
  • PSI Education Center

For the media

  • PSI in brief
  • Facts and Figures
  • Media corner
  • Media Releases
  • Social Media

Follow us: Twitter (in English) LinkedIn Youtube Facebook Instagram Issuu RSS

Footer legal

  • Imprint
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Editors' login