Critical phenomena of the layered ferrimagnet Mn3Si2Te6 following proton irradiation

TL;DR

This study investigates how proton irradiation affects the critical magnetic behavior and entropy of the layered ferrimagnet Mn3Si2Te6, revealing changes in universality class, interaction dimensionality, and enhanced magnetic correlations at specific irradiation levels.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the effects of proton irradiation on the critical phenomena and magnetic interactions of Mn3Si2Te6, highlighting the transition in interaction types and stability of antiferromagnetic coupling.

Findings

Critical exponents near mean field values after irradiation

Transition from 3D to 2D spin dimensionality with increased irradiation

Maximum magnetic entropy change at highest irradiation level

Abstract

We examine the magnetic properties of the quasi 2D ferrimagnetic single crystal Mn3Si2Te6 (MST) through critical phenomena and magnetic entropy analysis in the easy axis (H || ab) as a function of proton irradiance. Employing a modified asymptotic analysis method, we find that upon proton irradiation the critical exponents do not fall into any particular universality class but lie close to mean field critical exponents ({\gamma} = 1, \b{eta} = 0.5). The presence of long-range interactions can be safely assumed for the pristine and irradiated cases of MST examined in this work. Further analysis on the effective spatial dimensionality reveal that MST remains at d = 3 under proton irradiation transitioning from an n = 1 spin dimensionality to n = 2 and n=3 for 1 x 10^15 and 5 x 10^15 H+/cm^2, indicating an XY interaction and a Heisenberg interaction, respectively. The pair (spin-spin) correlation function reveals an increase in magnetic correlations at the proton irradiance of 5 x 10^15 H+/cm^2. In conjunction, the maximum change in magnetic entropy obtained from isothermal magnetization at 3 T is the largest for 5 x 10^15 H+/cm^2 with a value of 2.45 J/kgK at T = 73.66 K, in comparison to 1.60 J/kgK for pristine MST at T = 73 K. Magnetic entropy derived from zero-field heat capacity does not show large deviations across the proton irradiated samples. This suggests that the antiferromagnetic coupling between the Mn sites is stable even after proton irradiation. Such result implies that magnetization is enhanced through a strengthening of the super-exchange interaction between Mn atoms mediated through Te rather than a weakening of the AFM component. Overall, our study finds that the magnetic interactions are manipulated the greatest when MST is irradiated at 5 x 10^15 H+/cm^2.