2011/09/01 by H. C. Walker, F. Fabrizi, L. Paolasini +6 · 97 citations
Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemistry #Condensed matter physics #Crystal structure #Crystallography #Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Materials #Ferroelectricity #Ion #Lattice (music) #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Materials science #Multiferroics #Multiferroics and related materials #Nuclear magnetic resonance #Optoelectronics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.1208085
published in Science 333(6047), 1273-1276 (American Association for the Advancement of Science) · This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science VOL 333, (2011), doi:10.1126/science.1208085
openalex publication_date 2011/09/01 · arxiv created 2011/10/13 · arxiv updated 2011/10/14 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Magneto-electric multiferroics exemplified by TbMnO(3) possess both magnetic and ferroelectric long-range order. The magnetic order is mostly understood, whereas the nature of the ferroelectricity has remained more elusive. Competing models proposed to explain the ferroelectricity are associated respectively with charge transfer and ionic displacements. Exploiting the magneto-electric coupling, we used an electric field to produce a single magnetic domain state, and a magnetic field to induce ionic displacements. Under these conditions, interference between charge and magnetic x-ray scattering arose, encoding the amplitude and phase of the displacements. When combined with a theoretical analysis, our data allow us to resolve the ionic displacements at the femtoscale, and show that such displacements make a substantial contribution to the zero-field ferroelectric moment.