Observation of the magnetoelectric effect in a centrosymmetric antiferromagnet Cu(MoO)(SeO)

Piyawongwatthana, P.; 那波 和宏*; Wu, H. C.*; 佐藤 卓*

Piyawongwatthana, P.; Nawa, Kazuhiro*; Wu, H. C.*; Sato, Taku*

Magnetic properties of Cu(MoO)(SeO) were investigated using magnetic susceptibility and neutron powder diffraction. This compound has an armchair chain structure along the -axis that is formed by two inequivalent Cu1 and Cu2 atoms. The magnetic susceptibility shows a broad peak at 50 K, followed by a phase transition into antiferromagnetically ordered states at = 23.6 K. Below , powder neutron diffraction reveals that the = 1/2 Cu spins order antiferromagnetically with the magnetic propagation vector = (0, 0, 0). The spin polarization is predominantly along the -axis with weak non-collinearity. This system was also found to be a magnetoelectric material. Further measurements of each component of the magnetoelectric tensor confirmed that it belongs to magnetic space group .