Emergent spin-1 Haldane gap and ferroelectricity in a frustrated spin- ladder

上田 宏*; 小野田 繁樹*; 山口 泰弘*; 木村 剛*; 吉澤 大智*; 森岡 俊晶*; 萩原 政幸*; 萩原 雅人*; 左右田 稔*; 益田 隆嗣*; et al.

Physical Review B, 101(14), p.140408_1 - 140408_6, 2020/04

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.101.140408

We report experimental and theoretical evidence that RbCuMoO has a nonmagnetic tetramer ground state of a two-leg ladder comprising antiferromagnetically coupled frustrated spin- chains and exhibits a Haldane spin gap of emergent spin-1 pairs. Three spin excitations split from the spin-1 triplet by a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction are identified in inelastic neutron-scattering and electron spin resonance spectra. A tiny magnetic field generates ferroelectricity without closing the spin gap, indicating a unique class of ferroelectricity induced by a vector spin chirality order.