Neutrons worm the last secrets of the crystal

© A. Voit, TUM

© A. Voit, TUM

An international research group led by Dr. Vladimir Hutanu has recently been able to measure the magnetic parameters of the Ba₂CoGe₂O₇-crystal at the neutron diffractometer POLI much more accurately than it was previously possible. The Garching scientist from the RWTH Aachen has applied the so-called 3D polarization analysis with hot neutrons. For the first time, the proportion each domain type in the overall crystal and its change when a magnetic and electric field could be examined and accurately determined. The crystal reacted very quickly to the change of magnetic field and already a tenth of the theoretical field strength was enough to realize a single domain structure. With the help of this unique attempts in the research group succeeded in demonstrating experimentally that only one of the many theories fits to the measurement results.

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The results are published in Physical Review B Rev B 89, 064403 (2014)) .