Abstrakt
The magnetic phase diagram of the tetragonal Ho2RhIn8 compound has similar features to many related systems, revealing a zero magnetic field AF1 and a field-induced AF2 phases. Details of the magnetic order in the AF2 phase were not reported yet for any of the related compounds.
In addition, only the Ho2RhIn8 phase diagram contains a small region of the incommensurate zero-field AF3 phase. We have performed a number of neutron diffraction experiments on single crystals of Ho2RhIn8 using several diffractometers including experiments in both horizontal and vertical magnetic fields up to 4 T.
We present details of the magnetic structures in all magnetic phases of the rich phase diagram of Ho2RhIn8. The Ho magnetic moments point along the tetragonal c axis in every phase.
The ground-state AF1 phase is characterized by propagation vector k = (1/2,0,0). The more complex ferrimagnetic AF2 phase is described by four propagation vectors k(0) = ( 0,0,0), k(1) = (1/2,0,0), k(2) = ( 0,1/ 2,1/2), k(3) = (1/2,1/2,1/2).
The magnetic structure in the AF3 phase is incommensurate with k(AF3) = ( 0.5, delta, 0). Our results are consistent with theoretical calculations based on crystal field theory.