Intrachain collinear magnetism and interchain magnetic phases in <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:msub><mml:mi>Cr</mml:mi><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:msub><mml:mi>As</mml:mi><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:mtext>−</mml:mtext><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">K</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>-based materials
Giuseppe Cuono, Filomena Forte, Alfonso Romano, Xing Ming, Jianlin Luo, Carmine Autieri, Canio Noce
Abstract
We perform a comparative study of the $\mathrm{K}{\mathrm{Cr}}_{3}{\mathrm{As}}_{3}$ and the ${\mathrm{K}}_{2}{\mathrm{Cr}}_{3}{\mathrm{As}}_{3}$ quasi-one-dimensional compounds and show that the strong interplay between the lattice and the spin degrees of freedom promotes a collinear ferrimagnetic ground state within the chains in the presence of intrachain antiferromagnetic couplings. We propose that the interchain antiferromagnetic coupling in $\mathrm{K}{\mathrm{Cr}}_{3}{\mathrm{As}}_{3}$ plays a crucial role in the experimentally observed spin-glass phase with low critical temperature. In the same region of the parameter space, we predict ${\mathrm{K}}_{2}{\mathrm{Cr}}_{3}{\mathrm{As}}_{3}$ to be nonmagnetic but on the verge of magnetism, sustaining interchain ferromagnetic spin fluctuations while the intrachain spin fluctuations are antiferromagnetic.