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Multiferroics Materials

Project Leader:Xiaoli Tan
Principal Investigators: Vladimir P. Antropov, R. William McCallum, David Vaknin, Ruslan Prozorov, Jigang Wang

This effort will systematically investigate mechanisms governing the coupling of magnetic and electric degrees of freedom in dielectric materials by use of forefront experimental techniques and theoretical calculations. The term multiferroic refers to single-phase materials that exhibit at least two or all of the three so-called ferroic properties: ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism and ferroelasticity. The present proposal, as much as the current interest in these materials, focuses more generally on materials that show coupling between the two spontaneous order parameters, namely, magnetic (ferromagnetic, antiferromagnetic, ferrotorroidic moments, frustrated-modulated-magnetic structures) and ferroelectric.
This proposal will address questions relating to:

the factors that determine the strength of the coupling between magnetic and electric degrees of freedom,
the exchange couplings between the magnetic spins,
the nature of the incommensurate magnetic structures and domain structures in relation to the magnetoelectric effect,
the role of spin- and lattice-dynamics in these systems.

We will implement an integrated “materials–experiment–theory” research approach to address these issues, by applying electron diffraction, high-resolution AC and DC magnetic measurements, ultrafast laser spectroscopy/microscopy and elastic and inelastic neutron scattering techniques, including small angle neutron scattering (SANS). This project will directly address the DOE-BES goals outlined in The Grand Challenge for Collective Phenomena. Multiferroics are specifically addressed by this document as examples of collective phenomena that have potential for “allowing electrical control of magnetism, e.g., for information storage technology.”