2012/02/09 by Gianluca Giovannetti, Sanjeev Kumar, Carmine Ortix +2
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Materials #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Multiferroics and related materials #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.109.107601
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 107601 (2012)
arxiv created 2012/02/09 · openalex publication_date 2012/09/07 · arxiv updated 2015/03/09 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
With a combined ab initio density functional and model Hamiltonian approach we establish that in the recently discovered multiferroic phase of the manganite Sr(1/2)Ba(1/2)MnO3 the polar distortion of Mn and O ions is stabilized via enhanced in-plane Mn-O hybridizations. The magnetic superexchange interaction is very sensitive to the polar bond-bending distortion, and we find that this dependence directly causes a strong magnetoelectric coupling. This novel mechanism for multiferroicity is consistent with the experimentally observed reduced ferroelectric polarization upon the onset of magnetic ordering.