Canted antiferromagnetism in the quasi-one-dimensional iron chalcogenide BaFe2Se4

We report the synthesis and physical properties studies of quasi-one-dimensional (quais-1D) iron chalcogenide BaFe2Se4 which shares the FeSe4 tetrahedra building motif commonly seen in the iron chalcogenide superconductors. A high-quality polycrystalline sample was achieved by solid-state reaction method and characterized by x-ray diffraction, electrical resistivity, magnetic susceptibility, and neutron diffraction measurements. BaFe2Se4 is a narrow gap semiconductor that magnetically orders at similar to 310 K. Both neutron powder diffraction results and isothermal M-H loops suggest a canted antiferromagnetic structure where Fe sublattices are antiferromagnetically ordered along the c-axis quasi-1D chain direction, resulting in a net ferromagnetic moment in the perpendicular direction along the a axis with tilted angle of 18.7 degrees towards the b axis.