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Updated: May 9, 2026
Measuring Magnetically-Tuned Ferroelectric Polarization in Liquid Crystals
Published on: August 15, 2018
MnSb2O6: a polar magnet with a chiral crystal structure
R D Johnson1, K Cao, L C Chapon
1Department of Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom. r.johnson1@physics.ox.ac.uk
Abstract:
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 MnSb(2)O(6), a trigonal oxide with a chiral crystal structure. Unlike all other known cases, the MnSb(2)O(6) magnetic structure is based on corotating 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 stabilized by out-of-plane anisotropy. MnSb(2)O(6) is predicted to be multiferroic with a unique ferroelectric switching mechanism.
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