Quasistatic remanence in Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction driven weak ferromagnets and piezomagnets

Abstract

We explore remanent magnetization ($\mu$) as a function of time and temperature, in a variety of rhombohedral antiferromagnets (AFM) which are also weak ferromagnets (WFM) and piezomagnets (PzM). These measurements, across samples with length scales ranging from nano to bulk, firmly establish the presence of a remanence that is quasi static in nature and exhibits a counter-intuitive magnetic field dependence. These observations unravel an ultra-slow magnetization relaxation phenomenon related to this quasi static remanence. This feature is also observed in a defect free single crystal of $\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$, which is a canonical WFM and PzM. Notably, $\alpha$-Fe$_2$O$_3$ is not a typical geometrically frustrated AFM and in single crystal form, it is also devoid of any size or interface effects, which are the usual suspects for a slow magnetization relaxation phenomenon. The underlying pinning mechanism appears exclusive to those AFM which are either symmetry allowed WFM, driven by Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction (DMI) or can generate this trait by tuning of size and interface. The qualitative features of the quasi static remanence indicate that such WFM are potential piezomagnets, in which magnetization can be tuned by \textit{stress} alone.