Dimer Physics in the Frustrated Cairo Pentagonal Antiferromagnet Bi2Fe4O9

TL;DR

This paper investigates the magnetic excitations in Bi2Fe4O9, a pentagonal lattice antiferromagnet, revealing unconventional spin dynamics and a hierarchy of interactions leading to a dimerized paramagnetic state near the Néel temperature.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed spin wave analysis and modeling of superexchange interactions in a Cairo pentagonal lattice antiferromagnet, highlighting the role of frustration and dimer formation.

Findings

Unconventional spin wave excitations related to local spin precession.

Hierarchy of superexchange interactions leading to dimerized paramagnetic state.

Distinct magnetic responses from inequivalent Fe sites under applied field.

Abstract

The research field of magnetic frustration is dominated by triangle-based lattices but exotic phenomena can also be observed in pentagonal networks. A peculiar noncollinear magnetic order is indeed known to be stabilized in Bi2Fe4O9 materializing a Cairo pentagonal lattice. We present the spin wave excitations in the magnetically ordered state, obtained by inelastic neutron scattering. They reveal an unconventional excited state related to local precession of pairs of spins. The magnetic excitations are then modeled to determine the superexchange interactions for which the frustration is indeed at the origin of the spin arrangement. This analysis unveils a hierarchy in the interactions, leading to a paramagnetic state (close to the N\'eel temperature) constituted of strongly coupled dimers separated by much less correlated spins. This produces two types of response to an applied magnetic field associated with the two nonequivalent Fe sites, as observed in the magnetization distributions obtained using polarized neutrons.