Compass Impurity Model of Tb Substitution in Sr$_{2}$IrO$_{4}$
ORAL
Abstract
We show that upon Tb substitution the interaction between the magnetic moments on the impurity Tb$^{4+}$ ion and its surrounding Ir$^{4+}$ ions is described by a ``compass'' model, i.e., Ising-like interaction favoring the magnetic moments across each bond to align along the bond direction. Such interaction nucleates quenched magnetic vortices near the impurities and drives a reentrant transition out of the antiferromagnetic ordered phase at low temperatures hence quickly suppresses the N\'eel temperature consistent with the experiment [Phys. Rev. B \textbf{92}, 214411 (2015)]. As a by-product, we propose that the compass model can be realized in ordered double perovskites composed of the spin-orbital-coupled $d^{5}$ ions and the half-closed-shell $f^{7}$ ions.
*Supported by National Key Basic Research Program of China (2014CB920902), National Natural Science Foundation of China (11374018) and DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Science, under Material Theory program, DE-AC02-05CH11231.
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