Issue |
EPL
Volume 113, Number 2, January 2016
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 27007 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Condensed Matter: Electronic Structure, Electrical, Magnetic and Optical Properties | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/113/27007 | |
Published online | 22 February 2016 |
Magnetism and magnetoelectricity in the polar oxide α-Cu2V2O7
1 Department of Physics, Pohang University of Science and Technology - Pohang, 790-784, Korea
2 c-CCMR, Pohang University of Science and Technology - Pohang, 790-784, Korea
3 Max Planck POSTECH Center for Complex Phase Materials - Pohang, 790-784, Korea
4 Department of Physics, University of Virginia - Charlottesville, VA 22904-4714, USA
Received: 20 October 2015
Accepted: 3 February 2016
Single crystals of the orthorhombic polar oxide α-Cu2V2O7 with space group Fdd2 are synthesized and their physical properties are measured. Neutron powder diffraction is also performed on a polycrystal sample to extract the magnetic structure. The ground state is shown to be weakly ferromagnetic, that is, collinearly antiferromagnetic in the a-direction with a small remanent magnetization in the c-direction. When an external magnetic field is applied in the c-direction, further spin canting, accompanied by the induced electric polarization, occurs. It is demonstrated that the magnetoelectric effect in α-Cu2V2O7 is adequately described if spin-dependent hybridization due to spin-orbit coupling as well as magnetic domain effects are simultaneously taken into account. We discuss the implication of the present result in the search for materials with multiferroicity and/or magnetoelectricity.
PACS: 75.85.+t – Magnetoelectric effects, multiferroics / 75.25.-j – Spin arrangements in magnetically ordered materials (including neutron and spin-polarized electron studies, synchrotron-source x-ray scattering, etc.) / 75.10.-b – General theory and models of magnetic ordering
© EPLA, 2016
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.