%0 Journal Article
%A Guo, H.
%A Zhao, L.
%A Schmidt, W.
%A Fernández-Díaz, M. T.
%A Becker, Ch.
%A Melendez-Sans, A.
%A Peng, W.
%A Zbiri, M.
%A Hansmann, P.
%A Komarek, A. C.
%T Multiferroic properties of melanothallite Cu 2 OCl 2
%J Physical review materials
%V 3
%N 12
%@ 2475-9953
%C College Park, MD
%I APS
%M FZJ-2020-00050
%P 124405
%D 2019
%X Here we report on P−E hysteresis loop measurements that unravel the ferroelectric nature of melanothallite Cu2OCl2, a new multiferroic material with high critical temperature. Its spin structure was investigated by polarized and unpolarized neutron scattering experiments which reveal a cycloidal magnetic structure with vector chirality (magnetic polarity) that can be inverted by opposite poling of the sample with an inverted electric field. This shows that Cu2OCl2 is a spin-induced ferroelectric material. Finally, we show that the ferroelectric properties of Cu2OCl2 are driven by the inverse Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction mechanism which is also able to predict the observed direction of the ferroelectric polarization properly. The origin of the noncollinear spin structure in melanothallite are competing AFM-FM exchange couplings which we estimate from a combined ab initio + cluster configuration interaction calculation.
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)16
%9 Journal Article
%U <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000502803200003
%R 10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.124405
%U https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/872530