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Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 047201 (2002) [4 pages]

Ga1-xMnxAs: A Frustrated Ferromagnet

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Gergely Zaránd1,2,3 and Boldizsár Jankó1,4
1Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 South Cass Avenue, Argonne, Illinois 60429
2Lyman Physics Laboratory, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02145
3Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Physics, Technical University Budapest, Budapest, H-1521, Hungary
4Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46617

Received 14 November 2001; published 8 July 2002

Starting from a microscopic description of the exchange interaction in Ga1-xMnxAs, we derive an effective Mn-Mn interaction. Because of the strong spin-orbit coupling in the valence band, this effective interaction is highly anisotropic and has a spatial structure somewhat similar to dipolar interactions. The corresponding ground state has a finite magnetization but is intrinsically spin disordered even at zero temperature, explaining many features of the experimental data. Our results are relevant for many magnetic semiconductors.

© 2002 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.047201
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.047201
PACS:
75.40.Gb, 75.30.Ds, 75.50.Dd
 
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