Linking NH$^+_4$ motion to magnetism in molecular multiferroic (NH 4 ) 2 [FeCl 5 (H 2 O)]: A neutron vibrational spectroscopy study
Here, we present a neutron vibrational spectroscopy study to investigate the influence of NH$^+_4$ motion on the magnetism in [(NH 4 ) 1–x K x ] 2 [FeCl 5 (H 2 O)]. The parent compounds, (NH 4 ) 2 [FeCl 5 (H 2 O)] (x = 0) and K 2 [FeCl 5 (H 2 O)](x = 1) are isostructural at room temperature, yet displaying drastically different magnetic and multiferroic behavior. K 2 [FeCl 5 (H 2 O)] is nonmultiferroic with type-A collinear antiferromagnetic structure below T N ≈ 14.06 K, whereas (NH 4 ) 2 [FeCl 5 (H 2 O)] is a type-II multiferroic with incommensurate cycloidal spin structure below T FE ≈ 6.8 K. A recent study of the dielectric, structure, and magnetic properties in the mixed [(NH 4 ) 1–x K x ] 2 [FeCl 5 (H 2 O)] shows that a small amount of potassium substitution to replace NH$^+_4$ transforms the spin structure from incommensurate cycloidal (x ≤ 0.06) into commensurate collinear antiferromagnetic (x ≥ 0.15), indicating NH$^+_4$ is essential to the emergent phenomena observed in this molecular multiferroic compound. Our vibrational spectroscopy study reveals that NH$^+_4$ libration and torsion motion exhibit substantial temperature dependence at low temperatures. The intensity of NH$^+_4$ libration and torsion modes increases slightly at 5 K in comparison with data at 25 K behaving like a magnon, indicating that they are coupled to the magnetism in (NH 4 ) 2 [FeCl 5 (H 2 O)]. Comparing data of x=0, 0.06, 0.09, and 0.15 samples further illustrates that the strength of the increased signal in NH$^+_4$ libration mode is very sensitive to potassium concentration. The signal diminishes quickly with increasing potassium concentration and vanishes in the x = 0.15 sample corresponding to the magnetic structure change for x ≥ 0.15. The results directly link the anomalous behavior in NH$^+_4$ libration motion to the magnetism in [(NH 4 ) 1–x K x ] 2 [FeCl 5 (H 2 O)], providing new insights into the crucial role NH$^+_4$ plays in the coupled phenomena in (NH 4 ) 2 [FeCl 5 (H 2 O)]. The unique information opens a new door to go through in searching for new multifunctional materials by incorporation of NH 4 via a material-by-design approach.