Raman Scattering from Magnon Excitations in RFeO3

Raman scattering from one- and two-magnon excitations in various rare-earth orthoferrites are studied. The magnetic in-plane and out-of-plane anisotropy energies of these systems are obtained and discussed based on the two-sublattice model of ironspins. Detailed temperature dependence of the frequencies of two \(k{}0\) magnons are also examined on YFeO 3 , ErFeO 3 , SmFeO 3 , Er 0.7 Sm 0.3 FeO 3 and DyFeO 3 . It is shown that the softening behaviors of one-magnon peak frequencies are different between the rotational- and abrupt-type spin-reorientation (SR) systems. This is explained by different anisotropy terms which contribute to the magnon softening associated with SR transitions. The exchange interactions between the iron and rare-earth ions are considered to interpret the magnon softening in the vicinity of SR temperatures. The temperature and polarization properties of two-magnon Raman spectra are also discussed.