Scientific Achievement
Neutron and x-ray diffraction reveals the presence of coupled, incommensurate spin and charge density wave order in the quasi-1D compound, KMn6Bi5, in which superconductivity emerges when the SDW is suppressed.
Significance and Impact
Intertwined spin and charge order are common to many quantum materials. Our discovery opens novel avenues to study the impact of multiwave intertwined orders in quasi-1D systems with enhanced quantum fluctuations
Research Details
- Single crystal and powder neutron diffraction was used to study the temperature dependence of structural and magnetic order
- The structure of a spin density wave (SDW) was determined
- Single-crystal x-ray diffraction reveals satellite peaks in the AFM state with twice the q-vector of the SWD, indicating coupled spin and charge density waves
- X-ray diffraction shows significant magnetoelastic coupling, evidencing strongly coupled spin,charge, and lattice order
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