Noncoplanar spin canting in lightly-doped ferromagnetic Kondo lattice model on a triangular lattice

Abstract

Effect of the coupling to mobile carriers on the 120° antiferromagnetic state is investigated in a ferromagnetic Kondo lattice model on a frustrated triangular lattice. Using a variational calculation for various spin orderings up to a four-site unit cell, we identify the ground-state phase diagram with focusing on the lightly-doped region. We find that an electron doping from the band bottom immediately destabilizes a 120° coplanar antiferromagnetic order and induces a noncoplanar three-sublattice ordering accompanied by an intervening phase separation. This noncoplanar phase has an umbrella-type spin configuration with a net magnetic moment and a finite spin scalar chirality. This spin-canting state emerges in competition between the antiferromagnetic superexchange interaction and the ferromagnetic double-exchange interaction under geometrical frustration. In contrast, a hole doping from the band top retains the 120° -ordered state up to a finite doping concentration and does not lead to a noncolpanar ordering.