Magnetic anisotropy and orbital ordering in Ca2RuO4

D. G. Porter , V Granata (1) , F. Forte (1) , Sergio Di Matteo (2) , M. Cuoco (1) , R. Fittipaldi (1) , A. Vecchione (1) , A. Bombardi (3)

1 UNISA - Università degli Studi di Salerno = University of Salerno
2 IPR - Institut de Physique de Rennes
3 University of Oxford

We review the magnetic and orbital ordered states in Ca2RuO4 by performing resonant elastic x-ray scattering (REXS) at the Ru L-2,L-3 edges. In principle, the point symmetry at Ru sites does not constrain the direction of the magnetic moment below T-N. However early measurements reported the ordered moment entirely along the (b)over-right-arrow orthorhombic axis. Taking advantage of the large resonant enhancement of the magnetic scattering close to the Ru L-2 and L-3 absorption edges, we monitored the azimuthal, thermal, and energy dependence of the REXS intensity and find that a canting (m(c) similar or equal to 0.1m(b)) along the (c)over-right-arrow-orthorhombic axis is present. No signal was found for m(a) despite this component also being allowed by symmetry. Such findings are interpreted by a microscopic model Hamiltonian and pose new constraints on the parameters describing the model. Using the same technique we reviewed the accepted orbital ordering picture. We detected no symmetry breaking associated with the signal increase at the "so-called" orbital ordering temperature (similar or equal to 2.60 K). We did not find any changes of the orbital pattern even through the antiferromagnetic transition, suggesting that, if any, only a complex rearrangement of the orbitals, not directly measurable using linearly polarized light, can take place.

Domains: Physics [physics]

D. G. Porter, V Granata, F. Forte, Sergio Di Matteo, M. Cuoco, et al.. Magnetic anisotropy and orbital ordering in Ca2RuO4. Physical Review B, 2018, 98 (12), ⟨10.1103/PhysRevB.98.125142⟩. ⟨hal-01900873⟩