Dual nature of improper ferroelectricity in a magnetoelectric multiferroic

Autor:	Picozzi, Silvia, Yamauchi, Kunihiko, Sanyal, Biplab, Sergienko, Ivan A., Dagotto, Elbio
Rok vydání:	2007
Předmět:	Condensed Matter - Materials Science Condensed Matter - Strongly Correlated Electrons
Druh dokumentu:	Working Paper
DOI:	10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.227201
Popis:	Using first principles calculations, we study the microscopic origin of ferroelectricity (FE) induced by magnetic order in the orthorhombic HoMnO3. We obtain the largest ferroelectric polarization observed in the whole class of improper magnetic ferroelectrics to date. We find that the two proposed mechanisms for FE in multiferroics, lattice- and electronic-based, are simultaneously active in this compound: a large portion of the ferroelectric polarization arises due to quantum-mechanical effects of electron orbital polarization, in addition to the conventional polar atomic displacements. An interesting mechanism for switching the magnetoelectric domains by an electric field via a 180-degree coherent rotation of Mn spins is also proposed. Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Submitted for publication
Databáze:	arXiv
Externí odkaz:	http://arxiv.org/abs/0704.3578 Zobrazit plný text záznamu View this record from Arxiv