New Symmetries in Crystals and Handed Structures

For over a century, the structure of materials has been described by a combination of rotations, rotation-inversions and translational symmetries. By recognizing the reversal of static structural rotations between clockwise and counterclockwise directions as a distinct symmetry operation, here we show that there are many more structural symmetries than are currently recognized in right- or left-handed handed helices, spirals, and in antidistorted structures composed equally of rotations of both handedness. For example, though a helix or spiral cannot possess conventional mirror or inversion symmetries, they can possess them in combination with the rotation reversal symmetry. Similarly, we show that many antidistorted perovskites possess twice the number of symmetry elements as conventionally identified. These new symmetries predict new forms for "roto" properties that relate to static rotations, such as rotoelectricity, piezorotation, and rotomagnetism. They also enable symmetry-based search for new phenomena, such as multiferroicity involving a coupling of spins, electric polarization and static rotations. This work is relevant to structure-property relationships in all material structures with static rotations such as minerals, polymers, proteins, and engineered structures.Comment: 15 Pages, 4 figures, 3 Tables; Fig. 2b has error

Advances in ab-initio theory of Multiferroics. Materials and mechanisms: modelling and understanding

Within the broad class of multiferroics (compounds showing a coexistence of magnetism and ferroelectricity), we focus on the subclass of "improper electronic ferroelectrics", i.e. correlated materials where electronic degrees of freedom (such as spin, charge or orbital) drive ferroelectricity. In particular, in spin-induced ferroelectrics, there is not only a {\em coexistence} of the two intriguing magnetic and dipolar orders; rather, there is such an intimate link that one drives the other, suggesting a giant magnetoelectric coupling. Via first-principles approaches based on density functional theory, we review the microscopic mechanisms at the basis of multiferroicity in several compounds, ranging from transition metal oxides to organic multiferroics (MFs) to organic-inorganic hybrids (i.e. metal-organic frameworks, MOFs)Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure

Ferroelectric polarization switching with a remarkably high activation energy in orthorhombic GaFeO3 thin films

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) Grants funded by the Korea Government (MSIP) (Grant No. 2012R 1A1A2041628 and 2013R 1A2A2A01068274). The work at Cambridge was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). AG and RG thank the Department of Science and Technology for the financial support (Grant No. SB/S3/ME/29/2013).Orthorhombic GaFeO3 (o-GFO) with the polar Pna21 space group is a prominent ferrite owing to its piezoelectricity and ferrimagnetism, coupled with magnetoelectric effects. Herein, we demonstrate large ferroelectric remanent polarization in undoped o-GFO thin films by adopting either a hexagonal strontium titanate (STO) or a cubic yttrium-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) substrate. The polarization-electric-field hysteresis curves of the polar c-axis-grown o-GFO film on a SrRuO3/STO substrate show the net switching polarization of ~35 μC cm−2 with an unusually high coercive field (Ec) of ±1400 kV cm−1 at room temperature. The positive-up and negative-down measurement also demonstrates the switching polarization of ~26 μC cm−2. The activation energy for the polarization switching, as obtained by density-functional theory calculations, is remarkably high, 1.05 eV per formula unit. We have theoretically shown that this high value accounts for the extraordinary high Ec and the stability of the polar Pna21 phase over a wide range of temperatures up to 1368 K.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Symmetry considerations in structural phase transitions

The most important symmetry arguments to be considered in the analysis of structural phase transitions are reviewed. A practical approach is used, with the discussion of many examples. In particular, we stress the straightforward application of computer tools freely available in internet to solve these symmetry-related problems. We focus on programs available on the Bilbao Crystallographic Server (www.cryst.ehu.es), but also the use of some programs from the ISOTROPY site (stokes.byu.edu/isotropy.html) is discussed

Symmetry analysis of extinction rules in diffuse-scattering experiments

Structured diffuse-scattering intensities, whether of compositional or of pure displacive origin, static or dynamic, contain important information about the symmetry of the individual compositional and/or displacive modes responsible for the observed intensities. However, the interpretation of the experimental data is very often impeded by the lack of a symmetry-based approach to the analysis of the structured diffuse-scattering distributions. Recently, we have demonstrated the existence of systematic phonon selection rules for diffuse scattering that depend on the symmetries of the mode and the scattering vector, and not on the specific structure. Here, we show that such symmetry analysis can be successfully extended and also applied to structure-dependent diffuse scattering associated with disordered materials: the combination of theoretically determined, diffuse-scattering extinction conditions with the concept of non-characteristic orbits proves to be very useful in the interpretation of the observed diffuse-scattering extinctions. The utility of this approach is illustrated by the analysis of diffuse-scattering data from ThAsSe, FeOF and FeF2. The essential part of the associated calculations are performed by the computer programs NEUTRON (systematic phonon extinction rules in inelastic scattering) and NONCHAR (non-characteristic orbits of space groups) that are available on the Bilbao crystallographic server (http://www.cryst.ehu. es)