Magnetic phase transition of the perovskite-type Ti oxides

The properties and mechanism of the magnetic phase transition of the perovskite-type Ti oxides, which is driven by the Ti-O-Ti bond angle distortion. are studied theoretically using the effective spin and pseudo-spin Hamiltonian with strong Coulomb repulsion. It is shown that the A-type antiferromagnetic (AFM(A)) to ferromagnetic (FM) phase transition occurs as the Ti-O-Ti bond angle is decreased. Through this phase transition, the orbital state is hardly changed so that the spin-exchange coupling along the c-axis changes nearly continuously from positive to negative and is approximately zero at the phase boundary. The resultant strong two-dimensionality in the spin coupling causes rapid suppression of the critical temperature, as observed experimentally.