Single crystal studies on the newly discovered multiferroic LiFe(WO<sub>4</sub>)<sub>2</sub>

ORAL

Abstract

It was recently reported that the double tungstate LiFe(WO4)2 exhibits a multiferroic phase for which the driving mechanism is based on inverse Dzyaloshionskii-Moriya interaction [1]. LiFe(WO4)2 is thus beside MnWO4 only the second multiferroic material in the family of tungstates. Moreover, this system possesses in contrast to related MnWO4 a simple phase diagram without commensurate phases that interfere with the multiferroic domain dynamics. So far nuclear and magnetic structure investigations were done only on polycrystalline samples. Here we report on our single crystal studies on LiFe(WO4)2 and the respective nuclear and magnetic structure determination. Both magnetic phases in LiFe(WO4)2 were investigated by neutron diffraction experiments, which revealed a spin-density wave as an intermediate phase and a low-temperature chiral magnetic structure inducing the multiferroic behavior. Furthermore, neutron polarization analysis shows that an unbalanced multiferroic domain distribution develops even in the absence of external fields.
[1] Liu et al. Phys. Rev. B 95, 195134 (2017)

*This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), Project No. 277146847, CRC 1238, projects A02, and B04.

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Presenters

  • Sebastian Biesenkamp

    • Institute of Physics II, University of Cologne

Authors

  • Sebastian Biesenkamp

    • Institute of Physics II, University of Cologne

  • Dmitry Gorkov

    • Institute of Physics II, University of Cologne

  • Daniel Brüning

    • Institute of Physics II, University of Cologne

  • Alexandre Bertin

    • Institute of Physics II, University of Cologne

  • Tobias Fröhlich

    • Institute of Physics II, University of Cologne

  • Xavier Fabreges

    • Laboratoire Léon Brillouin, C.E.A./C.N.R.S.

  • Arsen Goukassov

    • Laboratoire Léon Brillouin, C.E.A./C.N.R.S.

  • Martin Meven

    • RWTH Aachen University, Institute of Crystallography - Outstation at MLZ

  • Petra Becker

    • Abteilung Kristallographie, Institut für Geologie und Mineralogie, Universität zu Köln

  • Ladislav Bohatý

    • Abteilung Kristallographie, Institut für Geologie und Mineralogie, Universität zu Köln

  • Thomas Lorenz

    • Institute of Physics II, University of Cologne

  • Markus Braden

    • Institute of Physics II, University of Cologne