Confinement effects in antiferromagnets

Phase equilibrium in confined Ising antiferromagnets was studied as a function of the coupling (v) and a magnetic field (h) at the surfaces, in the presence of an external field H. The ground-state properties were calculated exactly for symmetric boundary conditions and nearest-neighbor interactions, and a full zero-temperature phase diagram in the plane v-h was obtained for films with symmetry-preserving surface orientations. The ground-state …