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Lack of multiferroic behavior in BaCuSi<sub>2</sub>O<sub>6</sub> is consistent with the frustrated magnetic scenario for this material [electronic resource].

Published:
Arlington, Va. : National Science Foundation (U.S.), 2017.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Physical Description:
3 pages : digital, PDF file
Additional Creators:
Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Science Foundation (U.S.), United States. Department of Energy, and United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information
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Summary:
BaCuSi2O6 is a well-known quantum magnet that exhibits a Bose-Einstein Condensation quantum phase transition in applied magnetic fields. It contains Cu dimers that form singlets in zero magnetic field, and in applied fields as the singlet-triplet gap is suppressed a quantum phase transition occurs to canted XY antiferromagnetism between critical fields Hc1 = 23 T and Hc2 = 59 T. In addition, as the temperature is lowered, a rare frustrationinduced dimensional reduction has been proposed from three to two dimensions. Recently, however, a controversy has arisen about the details of the magnetic ordering due to the discovery of a tetragonal to orthorhombic structural transition at 100 K with an incommensurate modulation along the b-axis. Multiple magnon modes were observed in neutron diffraction studies, while NMR found modulation of the spin structure along both the ab plane and the c-axis. In this scenario the material is still a Bose-Einstein condensate system but the frustration is not perfect, calling into question the dimension reduction scenario. A recent study of BaCuSi2O6 combining inelastic neutron diffraction and density functional theory suggest that the material isn’t even frustrated at all and that the spins are ordered ferromagnetically in the a-b plane and antiferromagnetically along the c-axis. After a detailed symmetry analysis we have concluded that the magnetic scenario postulated by this most recent unfrustrated theory6 will render BaCuSi2O6 a multiferroic between Hc1 and Hc2, with electric polarization in easy axis of the a-b plane for magnetic fields along the c-axis via an inverse Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya mechanism. Electric polarization is a sensitive symmetry probe of magnetic order, since magnetic systems that break spatial inversion symmetry can induce an overall ferroelectricity in the crystalline lattice. In pulsed magnetic fields we can detect electric polarizations with unique sensitivity to sub-pC/m2, which is orders of magnitude more sensitive than what can be detected in DC magnetic field.
Report Numbers:
E 1.99:la--ur-17-21724
la--ur-17-21724
Subject(s):
Other Subject(s):
Note:
Published through SciTech Connect.
03/01/2017.
"la--ur-17-21724"
Vivien Zapf; Marcelo Jaime; Shalinee Chikara; Ian Fisher; C. D. Batista.
Funding Information:
AC52-06NA25396
View MARC record | catkey: 24056023