Magnetic phase diagram and magneto-elastic coupling of NiTiO3

Abstract: We report high-resolution dilatometry on high-quality single crystals of NiTiO3 grown by means of the optical floating-zone technique. The anisotropic magnetic phase diagram is constructed from thermal expansion and magnetostriction studies up to B=15T and magnetization studies in static (15T) and pulsed (60T) magnetic fields. Our data allow to quantitatively study magneto-elastic coupling and to determine uniaxial pressure dependencies. While the entropy changes are found to be of magnetic nature, Gr\"{u}neisen analysis implies only one relevant energy scale in the whole low-temperature regime. Thereby, our data suggest that the observed structural changes due to magneto-elastic coupling and previously reported magnetodielectric coupling[1] are driven by the same $magnetic$ degrees of freedom that lead to long-range magnetic order in NiTiO3, which in turn, establishes a linear magnetodielectric coupling in this compound.