Orbital and bonding anisotropy in a half-filled GaFeO3 magnetoelectric ferrimagnet.
We investigated the orbital anisotropy of GaFeO3 using the Fe L2,3-edge x-ray magnetic circular dichroism and the polarization dependent O K-edge x-ray absorption spectroscopy. We found that the system shows a considerably large orbital momentum and anisotropic Fe-O bonding, which are unexpected in a half-filled d5 system such as GaFeO3. The orbital and bonding anisotropies, which turn out to be induced by the lattice distortions with exotic off-centering site movements, contribute the large magnetocrystalline energy and magnetoelasticity. These results provide critical clues on the microscopic understanding of the magnetoelectricity.
Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Korea.
J-Y
JY
Kim
T Y
TY
Koo
J-H
JH
Park