Magnetoelectric MnPS3 thiophosphate: a new candidate for ferrotoroidicity ?

Eric Ressouche (1) , Mickael Loire (2) , Virginie Simonet (3) , Rafik Ballou (3) , Anne Stunault (4) , Andrew Wildes (4)

1 SPSMS - UMR 9001 - Service de Physique Statistique, Magnétisme et Supraconductivité
2 NEEL - Institut Néel
3 CorrElec
4 ILL - Institut Laue-Langevin

We have revisited the magnetic structure of MnPS3 thiophosphate using neutron diffraction and neutron polarimetry. This compound undergoes a transition towards a collinear antiferromagnetic order at TN = 78 K. The resulting magnetic point group breaks both the time reversal and the space inversion, thus allowing a linear magnetoelectric coupling. Neutron polarimetry was subsequently used to prove that this coupling provides a way to manipulate the antiferromagnetic domains simply by cooling the sample under crossed magnetic and electrical fields, in agreement with the non-diagonal form of the magnetoelectric tensor. In addition, this tensor has in principle an antisymmetric part that could result in a toroidic moment. MnPS3 , with its simple magnetic structure and rather high ordering transition temperature, offers then a new model system to better understand magnetoelectricity and ferrotoroidicity.

Domaines: Electrons fortement corrélés [cond-mat.str-el]

Eric Ressouche, Mickael Loire, Virginie Simonet, Rafik Ballou, Anne Stunault, et al.. Magnetoelectric MnPS3 thiophosphate: a new candidate for ferrotoroidicity ?. 2010. ⟨hal-00480720v1⟩