Magnetic structure of CuCrO2: a single crystal neutron diffraction study

Abstract

This paper presents results of a recent study of multiferroic CCO by means of single crystal neutron diffraction. This system has two close magnetic phase transitions at $Tnsub{N1}=24.2$~K and $Tnsub{N2}=23.6$~K. The low temperature magnetic structure below $Tnsub{N2}$ is unambiguously determined to be a fully 3-dimensional proper screw. Between $Tnsub{N1}$ and $Tnsub{N2}$ antiferromagnetic order is found that is essentially 2-dimensional. In this narrow temperature range, magnetic near neighbor correlations are still long range in the ($H,K$) plane, whereas nearest neighbors along the $L$-direction are uncorrelated. Thus, the multiferroic state is realized only in the low-temperature 3-dimensional state and not in the 2-dimensional state.