Brillouin study of phonons, magnons and magnetoelastic coupling in the antiferromagnet KNiF3

Brillouin scattering by magnons and acoustic phonons in KNiF3 has been studied as function of the temperature. At low temperature, we observe unusually large splittings of the phonon Brillouin lines, related to the multidomains structure of the samples. Using our determination of the anisotropy constant, K = 1.1×104 erg/cm3, we calculate from the splitting of the longitudinal [1, 1, 0] phonon a magnetoelastic coefficient ‖b2‖ = 3.3×107 erg/cm3. We also study the domains reorientation under an applied magnetic field.