Field-tunable toroidal moment in a chiral-lattice magnet

Lei Ding, Xianghan Xu, Harald O. Jeschke, Xiaojian Bai, Erxi Feng, Admasu Solomon Alemayehu, Jaewook Kim, Fei-Ting Huang, Qiang Zhang, Xiaxin Ding, Neil Harrison, Vivien Zapf, Daniel Khomskii, Igor I. Mazin (), Sang-Wook Cheong () and Huibo Cao ()
Additional contact information
Lei Ding: Neutron Scattering Division
Xianghan Xu: Rutgers Center for Emergent Materials and Department of Physics and Astronomy
Harald O. Jeschke: Okayama University
Xiaojian Bai: Neutron Scattering Division
Erxi Feng: Neutron Scattering Division
Admasu Solomon Alemayehu: Rutgers Center for Emergent Materials and Department of Physics and Astronomy
Jaewook Kim: Rutgers Center for Emergent Materials and Department of Physics and Astronomy
Fei-Ting Huang: Rutgers Center for Emergent Materials and Department of Physics and Astronomy
Qiang Zhang: Neutron Scattering Division
Xiaxin Ding: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Neil Harrison: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Vivien Zapf: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Daniel Khomskii: Universität zu Köln
Igor I. Mazin: George Mason University
Sang-Wook Cheong: Rutgers Center for Emergent Materials and Department of Physics and Astronomy
Huibo Cao: Neutron Scattering Division

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Ferrotoroidal order, which represents a spontaneous arrangement of toroidal moments, has recently been found in a few linear magnetoelectric materials. However, tuning toroidal moments in these materials is challenging. Here, we report switching between ferritoroidal and ferrotoroidal phases by a small magnetic field, in a chiral triangular-lattice magnet BaCoSiO4 with tri-spin vortices. Upon applying a magnetic field, we observe multi-stair metamagnetic transitions, characterized by equidistant steps in the net magnetic and toroidal moments. This highly unusual ferri-ferroic order appears to come as a result of an unusual hierarchy of frustrated isotropic exchange couplings revealed by first principle calculations, and the antisymmetric exchange interactions driven by the structural chirality. In contrast to the previously known toroidal materials identified via a linear magnetoelectric effect, BaCoSiO4 is a qualitatively new multiferroic with an unusual coupling between several different orders, and opens up new avenues for realizing easily tunable toroidal orders.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25657-6

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