Ferroelectricity Induced by Incommensurate Magnetism

Abstract

Ferroelectricity has been found to occur in several insulating systems, such as TbMnO${}_3$ (TMO) and Ni${}_3$V${}_2$O${}_8$ (NVO) which have more than one phase with incommensurately modulated long-range magnetic order. Here we give a phenomenological model which relates the symmetries of the magnetic structure as obtained from neutron diffraction to the development and orientation of a spontaneous ferroelectric moment induced by the magnetic ordering. This model leads directly to the formulation of a microscopic spin-phonon interaction which gives explains the observed phenomena. The results are given in terms of gradients of the exchange tensor with respect to generalized displacements for the specific example of NVO. It is assumed that these gradients will now be the target of first-principles calculations using the LDA or related schemes.

2005 MMM (Magnetism) Conference - 16 pages and 9 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Magnetic inversion symmetry breaking and ferroelectricity in TbMnO3
• Magnetically driven ferroelectric order in Ni${}_3$V${}_2$O${}_8$
• Competing Magnetic Phases on a "Kagome Staircase"
• The Kagome-staircase lattice: Magnetic ordering in Ni3V2O8 and Co3V2O8
• Neutron Scattering study of Sr_2Cu_3O_4Cl_2

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• A Neutron diffraction study of multiferroics RMn2O5
• Pressure-Temperature Phase Diagram of Multiferroic $N{i}_3{V}_2{O}_8$
• Symmetry constraints on the electrical polarization in novel multiferroic materials
• Magnetic structure and magnetoelectric coupling in bulk and thin film FeVO${}_4$
• Magnetic ordering and multiferroicity in MnI${}_2$
• Rotomagnetic coupling in fine grained multiferroic BiFeO3: Theory and experiment
• Order Parameters and Phase Diagrams of Multiferroics
• Flat-band spin dynamics and phonon anomalies of the saw-tooth spin-chain system Fe${}_2$O(SeO${}_3$)${}_2$
• First-principles theory of magnetically induced ferroelectricity in TbMnO3
• Electronic Structure, Optical and Dielectric Spectroscopy Study of TbMnO3