Electronic Transport on the Shastry-Sutherland Lattice in Ising-type Rare Earth Tetraborides

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electrical transport measurements in metallic Shastry-Sutherland lattice materials reveal the influence of magnetic plateau states, providing insights into frustrated magnetism in conducting systems.

Contribution

It presents a quantitative model linking resistivity behavior to magnetic plateau states in Ising-type rare earth tetraborides, a novel approach in metallic frustrated systems.

Findings

Resistivities reflect scattering with static and dynamic plateau structures

Model aligns well with strong uniaxial anisotropy effects

Framework established for studying plateau states in metallic frustrated magnets

Abstract

In the presence of a magnetic field frustrated spin systems may exhibit plateaus at fractional values of saturation magnetization. Such plateau states are stabilized by classical and quantum mechanisms including order-by-disorder, triplon crystallization, and various competing order effects. In the case of electrically conducting systems, free electrons represent an incisive probe for the plateau states. Here we study the electrical transport of Ising-type rare earth tetraborides $R$B$_4$ ($R=$Er, Tm), a metallic Shastry-Sutherland lattice showing magnetization plateaus. We find that the longitudinal and transverse resistivities reflect scattering with both the static and dynamic plateau structure. We model these results consistently with the expected strong uniaxial anisotropy in a quantitative level, providing a framework for the study of plateau states in metallic frustrated systems.