Multiferroicity in the frustrated spinel cuprate GeCu$_2$O$_4$

L. Zhao; L. Muzica; U. Schwarz; A. C. Komarek

doi:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.2.041402

paper

Multiferroicity in the frustrated spinel cuprate GeCu $_{2}$ O $_{4}$

arXiv:1712.09409 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.2.041402

Abstract

Different from other magnetically frustrated spinel systems, GeCu $_{2}$ O $_{4}$ is a strongly tetragonal distorted spinel cuprate in which edge-sharing CuO $_{2}$ ribbons are running along alternating directions perpendicular to the $c$ -axis. Here, GeCu $_{2}$ O $_{4}$ samples of high quality were prepared via high pressure synthesis (at 4 GPa) and the corresponding magnetic and dielectric properties were investigated. For the first time, we observed a ferroelectric polarization emerging at T $_{N}$ $\sim$ 33~K. Although the ferroelectric polarization is weak in GeCu $_{2}$ O $_{4}$ ( $P$ $\sim$ 0.2 $μ$ C/m $^{2}$ ), the existence of spin-induced multiferroicity provides a strong constraint on the possible ground state magnetic structures and/or the corresponding theoretical models of multiferroicity for GeCu $_{2}$ O $_{4}$ .

https://journals.aps.org/prmaterials/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.2.041402

Multiferroicity in the frustrated spinel cuprate GeCu2​O4​

Abstract

Multiferroicity in the frustrated spinel cuprate GeCu $_{2}$ O $_{4}$