Structural and magnetic chiralities are found to coexist in a small group of materials in which they produce intriguing phenomenologies such as the recently discovered skyrmion phases. Here, we describe a previously unknown manifestation of this interplay in MnSb2O6, a trigonal oxide with a chiral crystal structure. Unlike all other known cases, the MnSb2O6 magnetic structure is based on co-rotating cycloids rather than helices. The coupling to the structural chirality is provided by a magnetic axial vector, related to the so-called vector chirality. We show that this unique arrangement is the magnetic ground state of the symmetric-exchange Hamiltonian, based on ab-initio theoretical calculations of the Heisenberg exchange interactions, and is stabilised by out-of-plane anisotropy. MnSb2O6 is predicted to be multiferroic with a unique ferroelectric switching mechanism.
@article{arxiv.1306.3854,
title = {MnSb2O6: A polar magnet with a chiral crystal structure},
author = {R. D. Johnson and K. Cao and L. C. Chapon and F. Fabrizi and N. Perks and P. Manuel and J. J. Yang and Y. S. Oh and S-W. Cheong and P. G. Radaelli},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1306.3854},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters