2020/10/31 by Zeyu Jiang, Damien West, Shengbai Zhang
Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Antiferromagnetism #Condensed matter physics #Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Materials #Field (mathematics) #Geometry #Magnetic field #Materials science #Mathematics #Multiferroics and related materials #Physics #Pure mathematics #Quantum mechanics #Surface (topology) #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.102.174411
published as Phys. Rev. B 102, 174411 (2020) · 15 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Review B
openalex publication_date 2020/11/09 · arxiv created 2020/11/11 · arxiv updated 2020/11/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
A general formula for the average vector potential of bulk periodic systems is proposed and shown to set the boundary conditions at magnetic interfaces. For antiferromagnetic materials, the study reveals a unique relation between the macroscopic potential and the orientation-dependent magnetic quadrupole as a result of the different crystalline and magnetic symmetries. In particular, at surfaces and interfaces of a truncated bulk without inversion and time-reversal symmetries, the average vector potential exhibits a discontinuity which results in an interfacial magnetic field. In general, however, due to the surface and interface electronic and atomic relaxations, additional magnetization may result. For the experimentally observed magnetoelectric antiferromagnets, in particular, our symmetry analysis suggests that the relaxation effects could well be a system response to the presence of such a potential discontinuity.