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Antiferromagnets

Magnetic shape-memory effects in a crystal

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An Addendum to this article was published on 16 January 2003

A surprising new aspect is presented by an antiferromagnetic crystal structure.

Abstract

Magnetic fields affect the motion of electrons and the orientation of spins in solids, but are thought to have little impact on crystal structure, particularly in compounds with low magnetic susceptibility, such as antiferromagnets. Here we describe an unexpected magnetic effect on crystal shape, in which the direction of the crystal's axes are swapped and the shape changes when a magnetic field is applied; this in turn induces curious memory effects in resistivity and magnetic susceptibility. Ironically, this phenomenon occurs in one of the most well-studied two-dimensional antiferromagnets1, La2−xSrxCuO4.

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Figure 1: Effect of a strong magnetic field on La2−xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) crystal domain structure.
Figure 2: Magnetic-field-induced switching and memory effects in the in-plane resistivity, ρab, of LSCO (the crystal is cut along the orthorhombic a(b) axis as shown).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, Komae, 201-8511, Tokyo, Japan

    A. N. Lavrov, Seiki Komiya & Yoichi Ando

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  1. A. N. Lavrov
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  2. Seiki Komiya
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  3. Yoichi Ando
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Correspondence to Yoichi Ando.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Lavrov, A., Komiya, S. & Ando, Y. Magnetic shape-memory effects in a crystal. Nature 418, 385–386 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/418385a

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