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Electronic and magnetic structures of ternary iron telluride KFe2Te2

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Abstract

We examine the electronic and magnetic structures of iron telluride KFe2Te2 using first-principle calculations. We demonstrate that the ground state of this compound is in bicollinear antiferromagnetic order with Fe local moments (~ 2.6 µ B ) that are ferromagnetically aligned along a diagonal direction and antiferromagnetically aligned along the other diagonal in the Fe-Fe square lattice, similar to the alignment discovered in the parent compound of superconductor α-FeTe. This bicollinear antiferromagnetic order results from the interplay among the nearest, next-nearest, and next-nextnearest neighbor exchange interactions, which are mediated by Te 5p orbitals. This finding may aid our understanding of the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity in the family of iron-based materials.

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics and Shanghai Center for Superconductivity, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200050, China

    Xu-Guang Xu & Wei Li

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Xu, XG., Li, W. Electronic and magnetic structures of ternary iron telluride KFe2Te2 . Front. Phys. 10, 1–6 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-015-0495-8

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