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Incommensurate antiferromagnetism with amplitude modulation in the semiconducting $5 f$ van der Waals magnet $α − {UTe}_{3}$

Hironori Sakai ^1,*, Chihiro Tabata ^1,2, Koji Kaneko ^1,2, Yoshifumi Tokiwa ¹, Takafumi Kitazawa ^1,†, Shinsaku Kambe ¹, Yo Tokunaga ¹, and Yoshinori Haga ¹

¹Advanced Science Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Tokai, Ibaraki 319-1195, Japan
²Materials Sciences Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Tokai, Ibaraki 319-1195, Japan

^*Contact author: sakai.hironori@jaea.go.jp
^†Present address: Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan.

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Phys. Rev. B 114, L080402 – Published 7 August, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/jls4-6s89

Abstract

$α − {UTe}_{3}$ , a van der Waals (vdW) actinide compound with a monoclinic ${ZrSe}_{3}$ -type structure, is a narrow-gap semiconductor with $5 f$ moments. ${}^{125}{Te}$ NMR reveals strongly anisotropic, layer-confined spin fluctuations below $\sim 20 K$ , with the $a$ -axis component enhanced, and a signal wipeout at the antiferromagnetic (AFM) transition $T_{N} = 5 K$ . Single-crystal neutron diffraction finds $q \approx (0.17, 0.5, 0)$ and a longitudinal sinusoidal modulation of $a$ -axis moments (amplitude $\approx 0.8 μ_{B}$ ) with AFM stacking along $b$ . A crystal electric field singlet-singlet induced-moment framework accounts for the easy-axis anisotropy, the small heat-capacity anomaly at $T_{N}$ , the reduced ordered moment, and the exchange-driven selection of $q$ in this localized $5 f$ vdW magnet, establishing a constrained exchange geometry stabilizing this in-plane incommensurate state.

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Incommensurate antiferromagnetism with amplitude modulation in the semiconducting $5 f$ van der Waals magnet $α − {UTe}_{3}$

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Incommensurate antiferromagnetism with amplitude modulation in the semiconducting 5f van der Waals magnet α−UTe3

Abstract

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (38)

Incommensurate antiferromagnetism with amplitude modulation in the semiconducting $5 f$ van der Waals magnet $α − {UTe}_{3}$