Canted Spin Phase in Gadolinium Iron Garnet

Abstract

The behavior of ferrimagnetic garnets with three magnetic sublattices in an external field has been investigated. In the field-temperature plane we determined the stability limits of the collinear phases with respect to angle formation between the various sublattice moments. The application of our molecular-field analysis to gadolinium iron garnet (GdIG) shows that the angle formation between the two strongly coupled iron sublattices cannot be neglected. By measuring the Faraday effect in fields up to 10 kOe, we were able to observe the angled spin phase in GdIG in the vicinity of the compensation point.