2008/03/31 by Chen Fang, Trinanjan Datta, Jiangping Hu
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Materials #Multiferroics and related materials #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.79.014107
published as Phys. Rev. B 79, 014107 (2009) · 10 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2008/05/01 · openalex publication_date 2009/01/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
We investigate the possible types of coupling between ferroelectricity and magnetism for the zigzag spin chain multiferroic compound LiCu2O2. We construct a multi-order-parameter phenomenological model for the material based on a group theoretical analysis. We find that a theory involving interchain magnetoelectric coupling belonging to the same unit cell explains the experimental results of Park et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 057601 (2007)]. Our proposed model is able to relate the flop of the spin-spiral plane with the direction of the electric polarization. From our calculations we conclude that the zero-field structure observed by Seki et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 127201 (2004)] is the correct one. Furthermore, based on our theoretical model we make specific selection rule predictions about electromagnon excitations present in the LiCu2O2 system. We predict that the electromagnon peaks measured in an ac-conductivity measurement are field dependent.