Revealing the nature of magnetic phase transitions in langasite-type materials

The langasite family of compounds draws considerable attention because of their functional properties and recently have attracted a great interest as a new type of multiferroics. Recent high-pressure (HP)-low-temperature (LT) experiments using synchrotron Moessbauer source revealed the series of the magnetic and electronic transitions of Fe-bearing langasites. While the magnetic transitions were proposed to be induced by redistribution of Fe across the cationic sites, limitations of PXRD did not allow to support this hypothesis. Moreover, PXRD experiments were performed only at ambient temperature. Here we propose to further elaborate on the nature of magnetic and electronic transitions in langasites and to perform in situ HP-LT single crystal XRD studies that allow to track the subtle atomic-scale changes in their structures.