Collinear-to-Spiral Spin Transformation without Changing Modulation Wavelength upon Ferroelectric Transition in Tb1-xDyxMnO3

Preprint

26 January 2006

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.cond-mat/0601613

Abstract

Lattice modulation and magnetic structures in magnetoelectric compounds Tb1-xDyxMnO3 have been studied around the ferroelectric (FE) Curie temperature T_C by x-ray and neutron diffraction. Temperature-independent modulation vectors through T_C are observed for the compounds with 0.50< x < 0.68. This indicates that ferroelectricity with a polarization (P) along the c axis in the RMnO3 series cannot be ascribed to such an incommensurate-commensurate transition of an antiferromagnetic order as was previously anticipated. Neutron diffraction study of a single crystal with x=0.59 shows that the FE transition is accompanied by the transformation of the Mn-spin alignment from sinusoidal (collinear) antiferromagnetism into a transverse spiral structure. The observed spiral structure below T_C is expected to produce P along the c axis with the `inverse' Dzialoshinski-Moriya interaction, which is consistent with the observation.

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Version 1, 2006-01-26, ArXiv
Published version: Physical Review Letters, 96 (9), 097202.

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