Magnetic frustrations in the Shastry-Sutherland system ErB4

Magnetization and neutron diffraction measurements on single crystal ErB4 have revealed that ErB4 orders antiferromagnetically below T-N = 15.4 K with an ordering vector k = [100]. The magnetic susceptibility is highly anisotropic, chi(c) >> chi(a). Successive metamagnetic transitions occur with a plateau at the half saturation magnetization (1/2 M-S) for both B//a and B//c. The magnetic phase diagram is presented and discussed in relation to the frustration of the Shastry-Sutherland lattice. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.