Abstract
In materials showing a linear magnetoelectric (ME) effect, unconventional functionalities can be anticipated such as electric control of magnetism and nonreciprocal optical responses. Thus, the search for new linear ME materials is of interest in materials science. Here, using a recently proposed design principle of linear ME materials, which is based on the combination of local structural asymmetry and collinear antiferromagnetism, we demonstrate that an anion-deficient fluorite derivative, Mn3Ta2O8, is a new linear ME material. This is evidenced by the onset of magnetic-field-induced electric polarization in its collinear antiferromagnetic phase below TN = 24 K. Furthermore, we also find an antiferroelectric-like phase transition at TS = 55 K, which is attributable to an off-center displacement of magnetic Mn2+ ions. The present study shows that Mn3Ta2O8 is a rare material that exhibits both ME and antiferroelectric-like transitions. Thus, Mn3Ta2O8 may provide an opportunity to investigate the physics associated with complicated interactions between magnetic (spin) and electric dipole degrees of freedom.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 15078-15084 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Inorganic Chemistry |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue number | 20 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 18 2021 |
Funding
We thank R. Ishii and K. Yajima for their help in sample preparation and characterization, which were carried out under the Visiting Researcher’s Program of the Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo. The powder neutron diffraction experiments at the MLF of J-PARC were performed under Proposals 2019S05 and 2019AF0802. The neutron scattering experiment on a single crystal at DEMAND used resources at HFIR, a Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility, operated by the ORNL. The experiment is partially supported by the U.S.–Japan Cooperative Research Program on Neutron Scattering. This work was partially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grants JP19H05823, JP19H01847, and JP21H04436 and by the MEXT Leading Initiative for Excellent Young Researchers (LEADER).