Photo-creating supercooled spiral-spin states in a multiferroic manganite

Abstract

We demonstrate that dynamics of the ab-spiral-spin order in a magnetoelectric multiferroic Eu0.55Y0.45MnO3 can be unambiguously probed through optical second harmonic signals, generated via the spin-induced ferroelectric polarization. In the case of relatively weak photoexcitation,the ferroelectric and the spiral-spin order remains interlocked, both relaxing through spin-lattice relaxation in the non-equilibrium state. When the additional optical pulse illuminating sample is intense enough to induced a local phase transition thermally, the system creates a metastable state of the bc-spiral-spin order (with the electric polarization P//c) via supercooling across the first-order phase transition between ab- and bc-spiral. The supercooled state of bc-spiral spin is formed in the thermodynamical ground state of ab-spiral (P//a), displaying a prolonged lifetime with strong dependence on the magnetic field along the a-axis. The observed photo-switching between the two distinct multiferroic states sheds light on novel photoinduced phenomena in spiral-spin multiferroics.

References in corpus (7)

• Spin current and magneto-electric effect in non-collinear magnets
• Theoretical perspective on the glass transition and amorphous materials
• Role of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in multiferroic perovskites
• Ultrafast carrier dynamics and radiative recombination in multiferroic BiFeO${}_3$
• Using ultrashort optical pulses to couple ferroelectric and ferromagnetic order in an oxide heterostructure
• Phase-change memory function of correlated electrons in organic conductors
• Spin-dependent polaron formation dynamics in Eu${}_{0.75}$Y${}_{0.25}$MnO${}_3$ probed by femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Directly probing spin dynamics in insulating antiferromagnets using ultrashort terahertz pulses
• Temporal modulation of second harmonic generation in ferroelectrics by a pulsed electric field