Magnetic symmetries in neutron and resonant x-ray Bragg diffraction patterns of four iridium oxides

Abstract

The magnetic properties of Sr2IrO4, Na2IrO3, Sr3Ir2O7 and CaIrO3 are discussed, principally in the light of experimental data in recent literature for Bragg intensities measured in x-ray diffraction with enhancement at iridium L-absorption edges. The electronic structure factors we report, which incorporate parity-even and acentric entities, serve the immediate purpose of making full use of crystal and magnetic symmetry to refine our knowledge of the magnetic properties of the four iridates from resonant x-ray diffraction data. They also offer a platform on which to interpret future investigations, using dichroic signals, resonant x-ray diffraction and neutron diffraction, for example, as well as ab initio calculations of electronic structure. Unit-cell structure factors, suitable for x-ray Bragg diffraction enhanced by an electric dipole–electric dipole (E1–E1) event, reveal exactly which iridium multipoles are visible, e.g., a magnetic dipole parallel to the crystal c-axis (z-axis) and an electric quadrupole with yz-like symmetry in the specific case of CaIrO3. Magnetic space-groups are assigned to Sr2IrO4, Sr3Ir2O7 and CaIrO3, namely, PIcca, PAban and Cm′cm′, respectively, in the Belov–Neronova–Smirnova notation. The assignment for Sr2IrO4 is possible because of our new high-resolution neutron diffraction data, gathered on a powder sample. In addition, the new data are used to show that the ordered magnetic moment of an Ir4+ ion in Sr2IrO4 does not exceed 0.29(4) μB. Na2IrO3 has two candidate magnetic space-groups that are not resolved with currently available resonant x-ray data.