Spin-chirality-driven ferroelectricity on a perfect triangular lattice antiferromagnet

三田村 裕幸*; 綿貫 竜太*; 金子 耕士; 小野崎 紀道*; 天羽 祐太*; 橘高 俊一郎*; 小林 理気*; 志村 恭通*; 山本 勲*; 鈴木 和也*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 113(14), p.147202_1 - 147202_5, 2014/10

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.147202

Magnetic field () variation of the electrical polarization (c) of the perfect triangular lattice antiferromagnet RbFe (MoO) is examined up to the saturation point of the magnetization for B. is observed only in phases for which chirality is predicted in the in-plane magnetic structures. No strong anomaly is observed in at the field at which the spin modulation along the c axis exhibits a discontinuity to the commensurate state. These results indicate that ferroelectricity in this compound originates predominantly from triangular-spin chirality. The obtained field-temperature phase diagrams of ferroelectricity well agree with those theoretically predicted for the spin chirality of a Heisenberg spin triangular lattice antiferromagnet.