Field-induced magnetoelastic instabilities in antiferromagnetic molecular wheels

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Jan 20;96(2):027206. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.027206. Epub 2006 Jan 18.

Abstract

The magnetic torque of the antiferromagnetic molecular wheel CsFe8 was studied down to 50 mK and up to 28 T. Below about 0.5 K phase transitions were observed at the field-induced level crossings (LCs). Intermolecular magnetic interactions are very weak excluding field-induced magnetic ordering. A magnetoelastic coupling was considered. A generic model shows that the wheel structure is unconditionally unstable at the LCs, and the predicted torque curves explain the essential features of the data well.