TY  - JOUR
AU  - Guo, H.
AU  - Zhao, L.
AU  - Schmidt, W.
AU  - Fernández-Díaz, M. T.
AU  - Becker, Ch.
AU  - Melendez-Sans, A.
AU  - Peng, W.
AU  - Zbiri, M.
AU  - Hansmann, P.
AU  - Komarek, A. C.
TI  - Multiferroic properties of melanothallite Cu 2 OCl 2
JO  - Physical review materials
VL  - 3
IS  - 12
SN  - 2475-9953
CY  - College Park, MD
PB  - APS
M1  - FZJ-2020-00050
SP  - 124405
PY  - 2019
AB  - 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.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000502803200003
DO  - DOI:10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.3.124405
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/872530
ER  -