Field-tunable toroidal moment in a chiral-lattice magnet

Lei Ding; Xianghan Xu; Harald O. Jeschke; Xiaojian Bai; Erxi Feng; Admasu Solomon Alemayehu; Jaewook Kim; Fei Ting Huang; Qiang Zhang; Xiaxin Ding; Neil Harrison; Vivien Zapf; Daniel Khomskii; Igor I. Mazin; Sang Wook Cheong; Huibo Cao

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-25657-6

Field-tunable toroidal moment in a chiral-lattice magnet

Lei Ding, Xianghan Xu, Harald O. Jeschke, Xiaojian Bai, Erxi Feng, Admasu Solomon Alemayehu, Jaewook Kim, Fei Ting Huang, Qiang Zhang, Xiaxin Ding, Neil Harrison, Vivien Zapf, Daniel Khomskii, Igor I. Mazin, Sang Wook Cheong, Huibo Cao

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

22 Scopus citations

Abstract

Ferrotoroidal order, which represents a spontaneous arrangement of toroidal moments, has recently been found in a few linear magnetoelectric materials. However, tuning toroidal moments in these materials is challenging. Here, we report switching between ferritoroidal and ferrotoroidal phases by a small magnetic field, in a chiral triangular-lattice magnet BaCoSiO₄ with tri-spin vortices. Upon applying a magnetic field, we observe multi-stair metamagnetic transitions, characterized by equidistant steps in the net magnetic and toroidal moments. This highly unusual ferri-ferroic order appears to come as a result of an unusual hierarchy of frustrated isotropic exchange couplings revealed by first principle calculations, and the antisymmetric exchange interactions driven by the structural chirality. In contrast to the previously known toroidal materials identified via a linear magnetoelectric effect, BaCoSiO₄ is a qualitatively new multiferroic with an unusual coupling between several different orders, and opens up new avenues for realizing easily tunable toroidal orders.

Original language	English
Article number	5339
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	12
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25657-6
State	Published - Dec 1 2021

Funding

The work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Early Career Research Program Award KC0402020, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. This research used resources at the High Flux Isotope Reactor and the Spallation Neutron Source, the DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by ORNL. The work at Rutgers University was supported by the DOE under Grant No. DOE: DE-FG02-07ER46382. The work of D.K. was funded by the Deutsche For-schungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—Project number 277146847—CRC 1238. I.I.M. acknowledges support from DOE under Grant No. DESC0021089. The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is funded by the US National Science Foundation through Cooperative Grant No. DMR-1157490, the US DOE, and the State of Florida. N.H. acknowledges support from DOE BES project “Science of 100 tesla”.

Access to Document

10.1038/s41467-021-25657-6

Cite this

@article{51ed3247d4cc479584ceb2cef0802fa4,

title = "Field-tunable toroidal moment in a chiral-lattice magnet",

abstract = "Ferrotoroidal order, which represents a spontaneous arrangement of toroidal moments, has recently been found in a few linear magnetoelectric materials. However, tuning toroidal moments in these materials is challenging. Here, we report switching between ferritoroidal and ferrotoroidal phases by a small magnetic field, in a chiral triangular-lattice magnet BaCoSiO4 with tri-spin vortices. Upon applying a magnetic field, we observe multi-stair metamagnetic transitions, characterized by equidistant steps in the net magnetic and toroidal moments. This highly unusual ferri-ferroic order appears to come as a result of an unusual hierarchy of frustrated isotropic exchange couplings revealed by first principle calculations, and the antisymmetric exchange interactions driven by the structural chirality. In contrast to the previously known toroidal materials identified via a linear magnetoelectric effect, BaCoSiO4 is a qualitatively new multiferroic with an unusual coupling between several different orders, and opens up new avenues for realizing easily tunable toroidal orders.",

author = "Lei Ding and Xianghan Xu and Jeschke, {Harald O.} and Xiaojian Bai and Erxi Feng and Alemayehu, {Admasu Solomon} and Jaewook Kim and Huang, {Fei Ting} and Qiang Zhang and Xiaxin Ding and Neil Harrison and Vivien Zapf and Daniel Khomskii and Mazin, {Igor I.} and Cheong, {Sang Wook} and Huibo Cao",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021, This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.",

year = "2021",

month = dec,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1038/s41467-021-25657-6",

language = "English",

volume = "12",

journal = "Nature Communications",

issn = "2041-1723",

publisher = "Nature Research",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Field-tunable toroidal moment in a chiral-lattice magnet

AU - Ding, Lei

AU - Xu, Xianghan

AU - Jeschke, Harald O.

AU - Bai, Xiaojian

AU - Feng, Erxi

AU - Alemayehu, Admasu Solomon

AU - Kim, Jaewook

AU - Huang, Fei Ting

AU - Zhang, Qiang

AU - Ding, Xiaxin

AU - Harrison, Neil

AU - Zapf, Vivien

AU - Khomskii, Daniel

AU - Mazin, Igor I.

AU - Cheong, Sang Wook

AU - Cao, Huibo

PY - 2021/12/1

Y1 - 2021/12/1

N2 - Ferrotoroidal order, which represents a spontaneous arrangement of toroidal moments, has recently been found in a few linear magnetoelectric materials. However, tuning toroidal moments in these materials is challenging. Here, we report switching between ferritoroidal and ferrotoroidal phases by a small magnetic field, in a chiral triangular-lattice magnet BaCoSiO4 with tri-spin vortices. Upon applying a magnetic field, we observe multi-stair metamagnetic transitions, characterized by equidistant steps in the net magnetic and toroidal moments. This highly unusual ferri-ferroic order appears to come as a result of an unusual hierarchy of frustrated isotropic exchange couplings revealed by first principle calculations, and the antisymmetric exchange interactions driven by the structural chirality. In contrast to the previously known toroidal materials identified via a linear magnetoelectric effect, BaCoSiO4 is a qualitatively new multiferroic with an unusual coupling between several different orders, and opens up new avenues for realizing easily tunable toroidal orders.

AB - Ferrotoroidal order, which represents a spontaneous arrangement of toroidal moments, has recently been found in a few linear magnetoelectric materials. However, tuning toroidal moments in these materials is challenging. Here, we report switching between ferritoroidal and ferrotoroidal phases by a small magnetic field, in a chiral triangular-lattice magnet BaCoSiO4 with tri-spin vortices. Upon applying a magnetic field, we observe multi-stair metamagnetic transitions, characterized by equidistant steps in the net magnetic and toroidal moments. This highly unusual ferri-ferroic order appears to come as a result of an unusual hierarchy of frustrated isotropic exchange couplings revealed by first principle calculations, and the antisymmetric exchange interactions driven by the structural chirality. In contrast to the previously known toroidal materials identified via a linear magnetoelectric effect, BaCoSiO4 is a qualitatively new multiferroic with an unusual coupling between several different orders, and opens up new avenues for realizing easily tunable toroidal orders.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85114666320&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41467-021-25657-6

DO - 10.1038/s41467-021-25657-6

M3 - Article

C2 - 34504085

AN - SCOPUS:85114666320

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 12

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

IS - 1

M1 - 5339

ER -

Field-tunable toroidal moment in a chiral-lattice magnet

Abstract

Funding

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this