Critical Analysis of Skyrmionic Material Co$_{6.5}$Ru$_{1.5}$Zn$_8$Mn$_4$: a complex interplay of short and long-range interactions around the transition temperature

TL;DR

This study investigates the critical magnetic behavior of a skyrmion-hosting ferromagnet, revealing crossover between universality classes and the interplay of short and long-range interactions near the transition temperature.

Contribution

It introduces a novel critical scaling analysis of anomalous Hall conductivity and magnetization, demonstrating crossover behavior and universality in a complex skyrmionic material.

Findings

Crossover from 3D Heisenberg to mean-field behavior around T_C

Decay of exchange interaction as r^{-4.617} indicating short-range dominance

Magnetocaloric effect reveals fluctuation-disordered phase below T_C

Abstract

Critical behaviour study in magnetism is important owing to its application for understanding the nature of underlying spin-spin interactions by determining the critical parameters in the vicinity of a phase transition. In this article, we report the novel manifestation of crossover behaviour between two universality classes governing spin interaction across the ferromagnetic Curie temperature $T_C$ in critical scaling of anomalous hall conductivity isotherms for a skyrmion-hosting itinerant ferromagnet Co$_{6.5}$Ru$_{1.5}$Zn$_{8}$Mn$_4$. Along with the magnetotransport scaling, the traditional critical behaviour of magnetic isotherms yields $\beta$ = 0.423 $\pm$ 0.004, $\gamma$ = 1.08 $\pm$ 0.016, and $\delta$ = 3.553 $\pm$ 0.009 suggesting the 3D Heisenberg and Mean field type of spin interactions below and above $T_C$, respectively. The isotropic magnetic exchange strength decays as $J(r) \approx r^{ -4.617}$, implying the prevalence of crossover from long-range ordering to short-range type interaction. In addition, the existence of a fluctuation-disordered magnetic phase immediately below $T_C$ has been observed in the magnetocaloric effect. The novel approach of generating a low-field phase diagram employing the quantitative criterion of phase transition from the scaling of isothermal magneto-entropic change shows an excellent convergence with the phase boundaries obtained from conventional magnetic and anomalous Hall conductivity scaling. This simultaneous scaling of magnetization and AHC isotherms for systems with crossover behaviour establishes the universality of the magnetotransport-based critical scaling approach which still remains in its infancy.