Real-space imaging of the atomic-scale magnetic structure of Fe1+yTe

Mostafa Enayat, Zhixiang Sun, Udai Raj Singh, Ramakrishna Aluru, Stefan Schmaus, Alexander Yaresko, Yong Liu, Chengtian Lin, Vladimir Tsurkan, Alois Loidl, Joachim Deisenhofer, Peter Wahl

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy (SP-STM) has been used extensively to study magnetic properties of nanostructures. Using SP-STM to visualize magnetic order in strongly correlated materials on an atomic scale is highly desirable, but challenging. We achieved this goal in iron tellurium (Fe1+yTe), the nonsuperconducting parent compound of the iron chalcogenides, by using a STM tip with a magnetic cluster at its apex. Our images of the magnetic structure reveal that the magnetic order in the monoclinic phase is a unidirectional stripe order; in the orthorhombic phase at higher excess iron concentration (y > 0.12), a transition to a phase with coexisting magnetic orders in both directions is observed. It may be possible to generalize the technique to other high-temperature superconductor families, such as the cuprates.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)653-656
Number of pages4
JournalScience
Volume345
Issue number6197
Early online date31 Jul 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Aug 2014

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