Magnetic field switching between the two orbital-ordered states in DyVO3

The critical phase competition between different spin-orbital-ordered states has been investigated for the DyVO3 single crystal. As temperature is lowered, the compound exhibits a reentrant spin and orbital ordering (SO and OO) transition: C -> G -> C type for SO and G -> C -> G type for OO. It was found that a magnetic field also drives the phase transition from C to G for OO and concomitantly from G to C for SO, the latter of which is coupled with the metamagnetic transition of the Dy 4f moments. The mechanism of this novel magnetic-field-induced orbital switching is discussed.