Prediction of the Magnetotoroidic Effect from Atomistic Simulations

Abstract

An effective Hamiltonian technique is used to investigate the effect of applying curled electric fields on physical properties of stress-free BiFeO3 dots being under open-circuit electrical boundary conditions. It is discovered that such fields can lead to a control of not only the magnitude but also the direction of the magnetization. On a microscopic point of view, such control originates from the field-induced transformation or switching of electrical vortices and their couplings with oxygen octahedral tilts and magnetic dipoles. This control involves striking intermediate states, and constitutes a novel phenomenon that can be termed as "magnetotoroidic" effect.

References in corpus (8)

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• The Magnetoelectric Effect in Transition Metal Oxides: Insights and the Rational Design of New Materials from First Principles
• Natural optical activity and its control by electric field in electrotoroidic systems