Spin Arrangement of the High-Temperature Magnetic Phase in Chromium

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Abstract
Experiments with unpolarized neutrons on random domain single crystals are unable to distinguish between a simple spiral model and a transverse sinusoidal spin arrangement for the Cr magnetic structure above the low‐temperature transition. Using a Cr single crystal which had been cooled through the Néel point in a strong magnetic field, we analysed the polarization of the diffracted beams from the {100} satellites on the three‐crystal polarized beam spectrometer. The polarizations of the reflected beam in the various satellites predicted by the simple spiral model, independent of domain distribution were not observed. On the contrary our observations are consistent with each domain containing two transverse sinusoidal spin arrangements with unequal populations each oriented along a {100} direction. These inequalities, however, were far smaller (≈10%) than the inequalities in domain population (2:1) produced by the cooling field. We also observed that the preferred spin direction was that 〈100〉 direction most nearly perpendicular to the magnetic field direction, whereas the induced domain appeared to be related only to the shape of the specimen.

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