Effect of Ge-substitution on Magnetic Properties in the Itinerant Chiral Magnet MnSi

TL;DR

This study explores how substituting Ge into MnSi affects its magnetic properties, revealing increased transition temperatures, magnetization, and skyrmion phase size, with a non-linear change in helical modulation.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of Ge substitution effects on MnSi's magnetic phase diagram and properties, highlighting the enlargement of skyrmion phases and non-linear modulation behavior.

Findings

Helical ordering temperature $T_c$ increases with Ge content and saturates.

Saturation magnetization $M_s$ and critical field $H_{c2}$ increase linearly with Ge.

Skyrmion phase region enlarges for higher Ge concentrations.

Abstract

We have investigated the effect of Ge-substitution to the magnetic ordering in the B20 itinerant chiral magnet MnSi prepared by melting and annealing under ambient pressure. From metallurgical survey, the solubility limit of Ge was found to be $x=0.144(5)$ with annealing temperature $T_\mathrm{an} = 1073$ K. Magnetization measurements on MnSi$_{1-x}$Ge$_x$ samples show that the helical ordering temperature $T_{\mathrm{c}}$ increases rapidly in the low-$x$ range, whereas it becomes saturated at higher concentration $x>~0.1$. The Ge substitution also increases both the saturation magnetization $M_\mathrm{s}$ and the critical field to the fully polarized state $H_\mathrm{c2}$. In contrast to the saturation behavior of $T_\mathrm{c}$, those parameters increase linearly up to the highest Ge concentration investigated. In the temperature-magnetic field phase diagram, we found enlargement of the skyrmion phase region for large $x$ samples. We, furthermore, observed the non-linear behavior of helical modulation vector $k$ as a function of Ge concentration, which can be described qualitatively using the mean field approximation.