Magnetic ground state dependent magnetostriction effects on the chiral magnet CrNb3S6

A prototype of the monoaxial chiral magnet CrNb3S6 exhibited two magnetostriction (MS) effects: (1) spontaneous MS due to the exchange interaction and spin-orbit coupling (SOC) at zero dc magnetic field (H) [Phys. Rev. B 102, 014446 (2020)] and (2) paramagnetic MS due to SOC and Zeeman energy at room temperature [Phys. Rev. B 105, 104412 (2022)]. CrNb3S6 has various magnetic structures, such as helimagnetic, first chiral soliton lattice (CSL-1), second CSL (CSL-2), CSL-2 with irreversibility, and forced ferromagnetic phases, resulting from the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction as a function of H below the magnetic ordering temperature (Tc). In this study, we conducted powder x-ray diffraction analyses to investigate the effects of H and temperature (T ) on the MS at the atomic level. The T dependence of the lattice constants reveals that below Tc, the MS depends on the magnetic structure. The MS below Tc is discussed in this study in terms of both the hybridization between the z2 orbital of Nb(4 f ) and delocalized a1 orbital of Cr and the structural symmetry of the CrS6 octahedron.