Versteeg, Rolf Baldwin ORCID: 0000-0002-9928-5792 (2019). Optically probed order and dynamics in the chiral cluster magnet Cu2OSeO3. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.
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Abstract
This thesis addresses optically probed order and dynamics in the chiral cluster magnet Cu2OSeO3. Cu4 triplet clusters form the relevant spin entity for the formation of long-range magnetic order in this Mott insulator. As such, we can envision the magnetic ground state of this material as being a helix of spin clusters. Under an applied magnetic field different metamagnetic phases form, among others and most intriguingly, a topologically protected skyrmion lattice phase. The broken spatial inversion and time-reversal symmetry leads to a variety of optical phenomena in Cu2OSeO3, which are studied with a newly constructed polarization spectroscopy setup. It is shown that the broken spatial inversion symmetry leads to strong dipole active crystal field excitations below the charge transfer gap, and in addition, to natural optical activity. The natural optical activity may be used as a probe for structural chirality, and shows sensitivity to magnetic ordering, evidencing a finite magneto-electric coupling. Under external magnetic fields a strong magneto-optical response is observed, which is discussed to originate from spin cluster formation and the relative ease of magnetic domain reorientation. The strong Faraday-rotation is used to probe the metamagnetic phase transitions and to all-optically map the metamagnetic phase diagram of Cu2OSeO3, including the topologically protected skyrmion lattice phase. Previous work has shown that the long-range spin cluster ordering results in a characteristic spin wave spectrum which can be divided into low-energy external and high-energy internal spin cluster excitations. Here, spontaneous Raman spectroscopy was used to observe multiple spin cluster transitions at the Brillouin zone center, of which the Raman-activity is discussed to originate in the Elliot-Loudon light scattering mechanism. The temperature dependent scattering response of the high-energy internal cluster modes shows a crossover from broad continuum scattering above the critical temperature Tc into well-defined magnetic modes below Tc, which is discussed to originate from a change of the character of the internal cluster modes. Above Tc the internal spin cluster excitations have a localized magnetic excitation character, while in the long-range ordered phase the modes acquire dispersion, and correspond to optical magnons. Finally, using a home built novel time-resolved Raman spectroscopy setup, the photoinduced near-equilibrium spin and lattice dynamics of the helimagnetic phase was probed. Multiple ps-decade spin-lattice relaxation dynamics is observed, evidencing a separation of the order parameter dynamics into disordering of long-range and internal spin cluster order. The observations of the steady-state and time-resolved Raman study exemplify that Cu2OSeO3 can be regarded as a solid-state molecular crystal of spin nature.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD thesis) | ||||||||
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-98484 | ||||||||
Date: | 11 March 2019 | ||||||||
Language: | English | ||||||||
Faculty: | Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences | ||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences > Department of Physics > Institute of Physics II | ||||||||
Subjects: | Natural sciences and mathematics Physics |
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Date of oral exam: | 3 May 2019 | ||||||||
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Refereed: | Yes | ||||||||
URI: | http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/9848 |
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