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Magnetic properties of the putative higher-order topological insulator EuIn2As2

by Tomasz Toliński, Dariusz Kaczorowski

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Submission summary

Authors (as registered SciPost users): Tomasz Toliński
Submission information
Preprint Link: scipost_202208_00036v2  (pdf)
Date accepted: 2023-04-25
Date submitted: 2022-11-03 08:55
Submitted by: Toliński, Tomasz
Submitted to: SciPost Physics Proceedings
Proceedings issue: International Conference on Strongly Correlated Electron Systems (SCES2022)
Ontological classification
Academic field: Physics
Specialties:
  • Condensed Matter Physics - Experiment
Approach: Experimental

Abstract

In higher-order topological insulator (HOTI), a gap is preserved both for the bulk and the surface states, and only hinges or corners become gapless. Recently, it has been predicted that the antiferromagnetic compound EuIn2As2 can host both the HOTI and axion insulator features. Preliminary experimental confirmation of this finding was obtained using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The main objective of this work was to characterize the anisotropic magnetic properties of single-crystalline EuIn2As2. In addition, complementary studies on the transport properties, heat capacity, and magnetocaloric effect in this compound were performed.

Author comments upon resubmission

Answer to the Referee report on the paper:
Magnetic properties of the putative higher-order topological insulator EuIn2As2
by T. Toliński and D. Kaczorowski

We are grateful the Referee for the thorough revision of our manuscript. We applied all the suggested text corrections and they turned out to be very beneficial for our manuscript. These text changes are highlighted within the pdf file. The readability of Fig.1 has been also improved. However, the most important issue raised by the Referee have concerned the AFM transitions. He is right that at first glance one could see small inflections in magnetic susceptibility and specific heat which might indicate the presence of the transition at T_N1 = 17.6 K, apart from the well-established transition at T_N2 = 16.1 K. However, to avoid a speculative discussion, we have skipped such an analysis. In fact, detailed look to the derivatives do not allow us to state TN1 for our crystals. We have now extended Fig.4 to panels (c)-(f) showing exemplary derivatives (we have dense temperature data for the magnetic susceptibility and only for the sake of readability we skipped some curves). While for the ab plane maxima of chi(T) (corresponding to T_N2 and spin-flop T_SF) defined by zero points of derivative (T_N2 requires an extrapolation to cross the zero value of the derivative) are relatively well identified, the presence of T_N1 is not obvious. It could, maybe, be assigned to the negative peak, corresponding to a slope change because, probably accidentally, it fits T_N1. However, such a slope change is typically present above a peak of magnetic susceptibility (the slope must change somewhere) and usually does not imply a presence of any additional transition. For the c axis direction only a single transition is detected as, obviously, the spin-flop contribution is not present. Similarly, specific heat data does not allow us to claim that the transition at T_N1 is present. This is now illustrated by the inset to Fig.10. However, as we now write in the corrected manuscript, we do not definitely exclude the presence of the transition at TN1, which can be masked by overlapping anomalies associated with the various transitions at T_N1, T_N2, and T_SF. Such explanation is now added in the text, which is outlined in red.
We hope that the corrections and explanations justify our restriction to single magnetic ordering temperature.

Authors

List of changes

- text corrections indicated by the Referee are done and shown in red,
- the readability of Fig.1b has been improved (increased figure and scale information),
- Fig.4 is extended to additional panels (c)-(f) showing exemplary derivatives,
- Fig.10: inset added,
- Text is added (in red, page 6), which explains that we do not definitely exclude the presence of the transition at T_N1, which can be masked by overlapping anomalies associated with the various transitions at T_N1, T_N2, and T_SF.

Published as SciPost Phys. Proc. 11, 005 (2023)

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