The crystallographic and magnetic properties of the ${\mathrm{MnTe}}_2$ compound have been investigated by ${}^{125}\mathrm{Te}$ Mössbauer spectroscopy and by neutron diffraction on both powder and single-crystal samples. From $T_N$ down to 4.2 K, the single-crystal experiment, performed in an external magnetic field up to $H=4\mathrm{}\hspace{0.5em}T$, strongly supports the conclusion that the magnetic structure is noncollinear with the magnetic moments of the four manganese ions of the unit cell pointing along the body diagonals of the cube $\left({\mu }_{\mathrm{Mn}}\Vert 〈111〉\right)$ which correspond to their local axes, as shown from Mössbauer spectroscopy.

• Received 5 February 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.56.14013