Single-crystal growth and characterization of antiferromagnetically ordered EuIn2

Abstract

We report the single crystal growth and characterization of EuIn2, a magnetic topological semimetal candidate according to our density functional theory (DFT) calculations. We present results from electrical resistance, magnetization, Mössbauer spectroscopy, and X-ray resonant magnetic scattering (XRMS) measurements. We observe three magnetic transitions at TN1∼14.2 K, TN2∼12.8 K and TN3∼11 K, signatures of which are consistently seen in anisotropic temperature dependent magnetic susceptibility and electrical resistance data. Mössbauer spectroscopy measurements on ground crystals suggest an incommensurate sinusoidally modulated magnetic structure below the transition at TN1∼14 K, followed by the appearance of higher harmonics in the modulation on further cooling roughly below TN2∼13 K, before the moment distribution squaring up below the lowest transition around TN3∼11 K. XRMS measurements showed the appearance of magnetic Bragg peaks below TN1∼14 K, with a propagation vector of $\bm{\tau}$ =(τh,τ¯h,0), with τhvarying with temperature, and showing a jump at TN3∼11~K. The temperature dependence of τh between ∼11~K and 14~K shows incommensurate values consistent with the Mössbauer data. XRMS data indicate that τh remains incommensurate at low temperatures and locks into τh=0.3443(1).