Electronic charge transfer driven by spin cycloidal structure

Abstract

Muon spin rotation and resonant soft X-ray scattering experiments on prototype multiferroics RMn2O5 (R = Y, Sm) are used to demonstrate that the local electric displacements are driven by the spin-current (SC) mechanism. Small local electric displacements were evaluated by observing spin polarization at ligand O ions, for which implanted muons served as an extremely sensitive probe. Our results for YMn2O5 provide evidence that the spin polarization of O ions forming a spin cycloid chain with Mn spins increases in proportion to the vector spin chirality (Si x Sj ) of the Mn ions. This relationship strongly indicates that the charge transfer between O and Mn ions is driven by the SC mechanism, which leads to the ferroelectricity accompanying O spin polarization.

References in corpus (4)

• Spin current and magneto-electric effect in non-collinear magnets
• Complex Spin Structures and Origin of the Magneto-Electric Coupling in YMn2O5
• Microscopic mechanisms of spin-dependent electric polarization in 3d oxides
• Local Structure of Multiferroic TbMn2O5: Evidence for an Anomalous Terbium Oxygen Distribution