0000000000301185
AUTHOR
R. Blinc
Magnetoelectric effect in mixed valency oxides mediated by charge carriers
We show that the presence of free carriers in a substance can generate the multiferroic behavior. Namely, if the substance has mixed-valence ions, which can supply free carriers and have electric dipole and spin moments, all three types of long-range order (ferromagnetic, ferroelectric and magnetoelectric (ME)) can occur at low temperature. The physical origin of the effect is that charge carriers can mediate the multiferroic behavior via spin - spin (RKKY), dipole-dipole and dipole - spin interactions. Our estimate of the interaction magnitude shows that there exist an optimal carrier concentration, at which the strength of ME interaction is maximal and comparable to that of spin-spin RKKY…
Free Charge Carriers in Mixed Valency Oxides as Possible Mediators of Magnetoelectric Effect
We show, that in a substance with mixed-valence ions, which can supply free carriers and have electric dipole and spin moments, three types of long-range order (ferromagnetic, ferroelectric and magnetoelectric (ME)) can occur at low temperatures. The origin of the effect is that free charge carriers can mediate the multiferroic behavior via spin – spin (RKKY), dipole-dipole and dipole - spin interactions. We show that there is an optimal carrier concentration, at which the strength of ME interaction is maximal and comparable to that of RKKY interaction. Our analysis shows that disorder and finite conductivity in the above substances does not suppress multiferroic effects.