Chirality-driven ferroelectricity in LiCuVO${}_4$

Abstract

Chirality or the handedness of objects is of prime importance in life science, biology, chemistry and physics. It is also a major symmetry ingredient in frustrated magnets revealing spin-spiral ground states. Vector chiral phases, with the twist (either clock- or counter clock-wise) between neighbouring spins being ordered, but with disorder with respect to the angles between adjacent spins, have been predicted almost five decades ago. Experimental proofs, however, are rare and controversial. Here, we provide experimental evidence for such a phase in LiCuVO${}_4$, a one-dimensional quantum magnet with competing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions. The vector chiral state is identified via a finite ferroelectric polarization arising at temperatures well above the multiferroic phase exhibiting long-range three-dimensional spin-spiral and polar order. On increasing temperatures, spin order becomes suppressed at TN, while chiral long-range order still exist, leaving a temperature window with chirality-driven ferroelectricity in the presence of an external magnetic field.

10 pages, 5 figures

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• Vector Chiral Phases in the Frustrated 2D XY Model and Quantum Spin Chains
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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Temperature-Dependent Chirality in Halide Perovskites
• Magnetic structure and multiferroicity of Sc-substituted hexagonal YbFeO${}_3$
• Magnetoelastic study on the frustrated quasi-one-dimensional spin-1/2 magnet LiCuVO${}_4$
• Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering study of vector chiral ordered kagome antiferromagnet
• Magnetic properties of the quasi-one-dimensional S = 1 spin chain antiferromagnet BaNiTe2O7
• On the complexity of spinels: Magnetic, electronic, and polar ground states
• Proximate Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid in a spin-1/2 ferromagnetic XXZ chain compound
• Control of a polar order via magnetic field in a vector-chiral magnet
• Directional scrambling of quantum information in helical multiferroics
• Dynamics of the multiferroic LiCuVO4 influenced by electric field
• Magnetic-field-induced reorientation in the SDW and the spin-stripe phases of the frustrated spin-1/2 chain compound $\beta$-TeVO${}_4$