Ultrafast switching of the electric polarization and magnetic chirality in BiFeO3 by an electric field

Abstract

Using a first-principles-based effective Hamiltonians within molecular dynamics simulations, we discover that applying an electric field that is opposite to the initial direction of the polarization results in a switching of both the polarization and the magnetic chirality vector of multiferroic BiFeO3 at an ultrafast pace (namely of the order of picoseconds). We discuss the origin of such a double ultrafast switching, which is found to involve original intermediate magnetic states and may hold promise for designing various devices.

Accepted in Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (5)

• Spin current and magneto-electric effect in non-collinear magnets
• First-principles study of spontaneous polarization in multiferroic BiFeO${}_3$
• Electric-field-induced spin-flop in BiFeO3 single crystals at room-temperature
• Phase diagram of Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 solid solutions from first principles
• Singe ferroelectric and chiral magnetic domain of single-crystalline BiFeO${}_3$ in an electric field

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Electrical control of magnetism by electric field and current-induced torques
• Novel magneto-electric multiferroics from first-principles
• Novel magnetoelectric effects via penta-linear interactions
• Dynamical systems study in single-phase multiferroic materials
• A coupled magneto-structural continuum model for multiferroic ${\mathrm{BiFeO}}_3$
• Controlling spin-orbit torque by polarization field in multiferroic BiFeO3 based heterostructures