Unusual magnetoelectric memory and polarization reversal in the kagome staircase compound Ni3V2O8

Y. J. Liu, J. F. Wang, Z. Z. He, C. L. Lu, Z. C. Xia, Z. W. Ouyang, C. B. Liu, R. Chen, A. Matsuo, Y. Kohama, K. Kindo, and M. Tokunaga
Phys. Rev. B 97, 174429 – Published 29 May 2018

Abstract

We study the electric polarization of the kagome staircase Ni3V2O8 in magnetic fields up to 30 T and report a magnetoelectric memory effect controlled by bias electric fields. The explored ferroelectric phase in 1924T is electrically controlled, whereas the ferroelectric phase in 211T exhibits unusual memory effects. We determine a characteristic critical magnetic field H3=11T, below which strong memory exists and the polarization is frozen even in opposite bias fields. But when magnetic fields exceed H3, the frozen polarization is released and polarization reversal appears by tuning bias electric fields. We ascribe these phenomena to the pinning-depinning mechanism: nucleation and the accompanying pinning of chiral domain walls cooperatively induce the frozen behavior; the polarization reversal results from the depinning through the ferroelectrtic-to-paraelectric phase transition in high magnetic fields. Our experimental results reveal that the first-order phase transition plays an important role in these unusual memory effects.

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  • Received 3 April 2018
  • Revised 11 May 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.97.174429

©2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Y. J. Liu1, J. F. Wang1,*, Z. Z. He2, C. L. Lu1, Z. C. Xia1, Z. W. Ouyang1, C. B. Liu1, R. Chen1, A. Matsuo3, Y. Kohama3, K. Kindo3, and M. Tokunaga3,†

  • 1Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center and School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, China
  • 3The Institute for Solid State Physics (ISSP), University of Tokyo, Chiba 277–8581, Japan

  • *jfwang@hust.edu.cn
  • tokunaga@issp.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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Issue

Vol. 97, Iss. 17 — 1 May 2018

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