Phys. Rev. Lett. 31, 1061-1063 (1973)

                                                                                 [Issue 17 - October 1973 ]

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Dynamics of the Antiferromagnetic Spin-Flop Transition

       F. Keffer and H. Chow 
       Department of Physics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260

Received 11 September 1973

The critical magnetic field producing spin flop in many antiferromagnets is too small to soften a three-dimensional magnon, i.e., to remove the energy barrier between the equal-energy phases. The barrier can be bypassed,
however, via the softening of surface magnons in a smaller field, forming two-dimensional surface-spin-flop states, which broaden with increasing field and which catastrophically spread inward across the
three-dimensional material as the critical field is approached.

©1973 The American Physical Society

URL: http://publish.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v31/p1061