The fractional magnetization plateaus of synthetic triangular heterostructures: Monte Carlo simulation

• The triangular heterostructures model exhibits additional magnetization plateaus.
• The additional plateaus are mainly dependent on the lattice structure design.
• The simulated results can be well understood from the energy landscape.
• This work suggests a method of modulating the magnetization behaviors.

In this work, we study the magnetization process of triangular heterostructures formed by a number of multilayers which are coupled antiferromagnetically by Monte Carlo simulation of an Ising model. The antiferromagnetic in-layer and ferromagnetic inter-layer couplings are considered in each stack. Interestingly, it is observed that several additional magnetization plateaus can be stabilized by the consideration of the inter-stack coupling, in addition to the main 1/3 plateau observed in bulk system. Furthermore, the widths of these plateaus are mainly determined by the lattice structure and inter-stack coupling, and the heights are only dependent on the lattice structure. Thus, our work suggests a possible method of modulating the spin orders and magnetization plateaus in synthetic triangular heterostructures through detailed tuning the lattice structure.

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