Abstract
The correlation between magnetic and dielectric properties has been investigated for the single crystal of the chiral triangular-lattice helimagnet MnSb2O6. We found that the spin-spiral plane in the ground state has a considerable tilting from the (110) plane and that the sign of the spin-spiral tilting angle is coupled to the clockwise or counterclockwise manner of spin rotation and accordingly to the sign of magnetically induced electric polarization. This leads to unique magnetoelectric responses such as the magnetic-field-induced selection of a single ferroelectric domain as well as the reversal of electric polarization just by a slight tilting of the magnetic field direction, where the chiral nature of the crystal structure plays a crucial role through the coupling of the chirality between the crystal and magnetic structures. Our results demonstrate that crystallographic chirality can be an abundant source of novel magnetoelectric functions with coupled internal degrees of freedom.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 047201 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 117 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 22 2016 |
Funding
The authors thank H. Sakai, T. Kurumaji, N. Nagaosa, and T. Arima for enlightening discussions and experimental help. This work was partly supported by the Mitsubishi Foundation, Grants-In-Aid for Scientific Research (Grants No. 26610109, No. 15H05458, No. 24224009, and No. 16K13842) from the MEXT of Japan, and FIRST Program by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). The work at the HFIR, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was sponsored by the Division of Scientific User Facilities, Office of Basic Energy Science, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and was supported by the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Program on Neutron Scattering.