247 research outputs found
Electronic Orbital Currents and Polarization in Mott Insulators
The standard view is that at low energies Mott insulators exhibit only
magnetic properties while charge degrees of freedom are frozen out as the
electrons become localized by a strong Coulomb repulsion. We demonstrate that
this is in general not true: for certain spin textures {\it spontaneous
circular electric currents} or {\it nonuniform charge distribution} exist in
the ground state of Mott insulators. In addition, low-energy ``magnetic''
states contribute comparably to the dielectric and magnetic functions
and leading to interesting phenomena
such as rotation the electric field polarization and resonances which may be
common for both functions producing a negative refraction index in a window of
frequencies
Phase diagram of disordered spin-Peierls systems
We study the competition between the spin-Peierls and the antiferromagnetic
ordering in disordered quasi-one-dimensional spin systems. We obtain the
temperature vs disorder-strength phase diagram, which qualitatively agrees with
recent experiments on doped CuGeO_3.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, epsf, 2 Postscript figure
Coupling of frustrated Ising spins to magnetic cycloid in multiferroic TbMnO3
We report on diffraction measurements on multiferroic TbMnO3 which
demonstrate that the Tb- and Mn-magnetic orders are coupled below the
ferroelectric transition TFE = 28 K. For T < TFE the magnetic propagation
vectors (tau) for Tb and Mn are locked so that tauTb = tauMn, while below TNTb
= 7 K we find that tauTb and tauMn lock-in to rational values of 3/7 b* and 2/7
b*, respectively, and obey the relation 3tauTb - tauMn = 1. We explain this
novel matching of wave vectors within the frustrated ANNNI model coupled to a
periodic external field produced by the Mn-spin order. The tauTb = tauMn
behavior is recovered when Tb magnetization is small, while the tauTb = 3/7
regime is stabilized at low temperatures by a peculiar arrangement of domain
walls in the ordered state of Ising-like Tb spins.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Optical properties, electron-phonon coupling, and Raman scattering of vanadium ladder compounds
The electronic structure of two V-based ladder compounds, the quarter-filled
NaVO in the symmetric phase and the iso-structural half-filled
CaVO is investigated by ab initio calculations. Based on the
bandstructure we determine the dielectric tensor of these
systems in a wide energy range. The frequencies and eigenvectors of the fully
symmetric A phonon modes and the corresponding electron-phonon and
spin-phonon coupling parameters are also calculated from first-principles. We
determine the Raman scattering intensities of the A phonon modes as a
function of polarization and frequency of the exciting light.
All results, i.e. shape and magnitude of the dielectric function, phonon
frequencies and Raman intensities show very good agreement with available
experimental data.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure
Frustrated spin model as a hard-sphere liquid
We show that one-dimensional topological objects (kinks) are natural degrees
of freedom for an antiferromagnetic Ising model on a triangular lattice. Its
ground states and the coexistence of spin ordering with an extensive
zero-temperature entropy can be easily understood in terms of kinks forming a
hard-sphere liquid. Using this picture we explain effects of quantum spin
dynamics on that frustrated model, which we also study numerically.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Superexchange in the quarter- filled two- leg ladder system NaV2O5
A theory of superexchange in the mixed valent layer compound NaV2O5 is
presented which provides a consistent description of exchange both in the
disordered and charge ordered state. Starting from results of band structure
calculations for NaV2O5 first an underlying electronic model for a ladder unit
in the Trellis lattice is formulated. By using the molecular orbital
representation for intra-rung electronic states a second-order perturbation
procedure is developed and an effective spin-chain model for a ladder is
derived. Variation of the resulting superexchange integral J is examined
numerically as the ladder system evolves from a charge disordered to the
extreme ('zig-zag') charge ordered state. It is found that the effective intra-
ladder superexchange is always antiferromagnetic.Comment: 18 pages Revtex, 7 Postscript figure
Electric and magnetic polarizabilities of hexagonal Ln2CuTiO6 (Ln=Y, Dy, Ho, Er and Yb)
We investigated the rare-earth transition metal oxide series, Ln2CuTiO6
(Ln=Y, Dy, Ho, Er and Yb), crystallizing in the hexagonal structure with
non-centrosymmetric P63cm space group for possible occurrences of multiferroic
properties. Our results show that while these compounds, except Ln=Y, exhibit a
low temperature antiferromagnetic transition due to the ordering of the
rare-earth moments, the expected ferroelectric transition is frustrated by the
large size difference between Cu and Ti at the B-site. Interestingly, this
leads these compounds to attain a rare and unique combination of desirable
paraelectric properties with high dielectric constants, low losses and weak
temperature and frequency dependencies. First-principles calculations establish
these exceptional properties result from a combination of two effects. A
significant difference in the MO5 polyhedral sizes for M = Cu and M = Ti
suppress the expected co-operative tilt pattern of these polyhedra, required
for the ferroelectric transition, leading to relatively large values of the
dielectric constant for every compound investigated in this series.
Additionally, it is shown that the majority contribution to the dielectric
constant arises from intermediate-frequency polar vibrational modes, making it
relatively stable against any temperature variation. Changes in the temperature
stability of the dielectric constant amongst different members of this series
are shown to arise from changes in relative contributions from soft polar
modes.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B (21 pages, 2 Table, 8
Figures
Elementary excitations, exchange interaction and spin-Peierls transition in CuGeO
The microscopic description of the spin-Peierls transition in pure and doped
CuGeO_3 is developed taking into account realistic details of crystal
structure. It it shown that the presence of side-groups (here Ge) strongly
influences superexchange along Cu-O-Cu path, making it antiferromagnetic.
Nearest-neighbour and next-nearest neighbour exchange constants and
are calculated. Si doping effectively segments the CuO_2-chains
leading to or even slightly ferromagnetic. Strong
sensitivity of the exchange constants to Cu-O-Cu and (Cu-O-Cu)-Ge angles may be
responsible for the spin-Peierls transition itself (``bond-bending mechanism''
of the transition). The nature of excitations in the isolated and coupled
spin-Peierls chains is studied and it is shown that topological excitations
(solitons) play crucial role. Such solitons appear in particular in doped
systems (Cu_{1-x}Zn_xGeO_3, CuGe_{1-x}Si_xO_3) which can explain the
phase diagram.Comment: 7 pages, revtex, 7 Postscript figure
All-electrical detection of skyrmion lattice state and chiral surface twists
We study the high-temperature phase diagram of the chiral magnetic insulator
CuOSeO by measuring the spin-Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) in a thin Pt
electrode. We find distinct changes in the phase and amplitude of the SMR
signal at critical lines separating different magnetic phases of bulk
CuOSeO. The skyrmion lattice state appears as a strong dip in the SMR
phase. A strong enhancement of the SMR amplitude is observed in the conical
spiral state, which we explain by an additional symmetry-allowed contribution
to the SMR present in non-collinear magnets. We demonstrate that the SMR can be
used as an all-electrical probe of chiral surface twists and skyrmions in
magnetic insulators
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