Magnons and electromagnons in a spin-lattice-coupled frustrated magnet CuFeO as seen via inelastic neutron scattering

中島 多朗*; 須能 梓*; 満田 節生*; 寺田 典樹*; 木村 尚次郎*; 金子 耕士; 山内 宏樹

Physical Review B, 84(18), p.184401_1 - 184401_7, 2011/11

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.84.184401

We have investigated spin-wave excitations in a four-sublattice (4SL) magnetic ground state of a frustrated magnet CuFeO, in which "electromagnon" excitation has been discovered by recent terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. We have performed high-energy-resolution inelastic neutron scattering measurements in the 4SL phase, resolving fine structures of the lower-energy spin-wave branch near the zone center. We have developed a model Hamiltonian to describe the spin-wave excitations. The determined Hamiltonian parameters have successfully reproduced the spin-wave dispersion relations and intensity maps obtained in the inelastic neutron scattering measurements. The results of the spin-wave analysis have also revealed physical pictures of the magnon and electromagnon modes in the 4SL phase, suggesting that collinear and noncollinear characters of the two spin-wave modes are the keys to understand the dynamical coupling between the spins and electric dipole moments in this system.