Abstract
Many years and great effort have been spent constructing the microscopic model for the room temperature multiferroic BiFeO3. However, earlier models implicitly assumed that the cycloidal wavevector q was confined to one of the three-fold symmetric axes in the hexagonal plane normal to the electric polarization. Because recent measurements indicate that q can be rotated by a magnetic field, it is essential to properly treat the anisotropy that confines q at low fields. We propose that the anisotropy energy −K3S6sin6θcos6ϕ confines the wavevectors q to the three-fold axis ϕ=0 and ±2π/3 within the hexagonal plane with θ=π/2.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 115-117 |
| Number of pages | 3 |
| Journal | Physica B: Physics of Condensed Matter |
| Volume | 536 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 1 2018 |
Funding
Thanks to Istvan Kézsmárki for helpful discussions. Research sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.
Keywords
- Anisotropy
- Domain
- Multiferroic