Magnetoelectric effect

The first example of a magnetoelectric effect was discussed in 1888 by Wilhelm Röntgen, who showed that a dielectric material moving through an electric field would become magnetized. in 1894, while the term "magnetoelectric" was coined by Peter Debye in 1926. A mathematical formulation of the linear magnetoelectric effect was included in Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz's Course of Theoretical Physics. triggered a renaissance of these studies and magnetoelectric effect is still heavily investigated. == Linear magnetoelectric effect ==

Historically, the first and most studied example of this effect is the linear magnetoelectric effect. Mathematically, while the electric susceptibility \chi^e and magnetic susceptibility \chi^v describe the electric and magnetic polarization responses to an electric, resp. a magnetic field, there is also the possibility of a magnetoelectric susceptibility \alpha_{ij} which describes a linear response of the electric polarization to a magnetic field, and vice versa: :P_i= \sum_j \epsilon_0\chi^e_{ij} E_{j} + \sum_j \alpha_{ij}H_j :\mu_0 M_i= \sum_j \mu_0\chi^v_{ij}H_{j} + \sum_j \alpha_{ij}E_j, The tensor \alpha must be the same in both equations. Here, P is the electric polarization, M the magnetization, E and H the electric and magnetic fields. In SI units, \alpha has units of second per meter. The first material where an intrinsic linear magnetoelectric effect was predicted theoretically and confirmed experimentally was Cr2O3. This is a single-phase material. Multiferroics are another example of single-phase materials that can exhibit a general magnetoelectric effect if their magnetic and electric orders are coupled. Composite materials are another way to realize magnetoelectrics. There, the idea is to combine, say a magnetostrictive and a piezoelectric material. These two materials interact by strain, leading to a coupling between magnetic and electric properties of the compound material. == General phenomenology ==

If the coupling between magnetic and electric properties is analytic, then the magnetoelectric effect can be described by an expansion of the free energy as a power series in the electric and magnetic fields E and H: :\begin{align} F(E,H) &= F_0 - P^{s}_i E_i - \mu_0 M^{s}_i H_i - \frac12 \epsilon_0 \chi^e_{ij} E_i E_j - \frac12 \mu_0 \chi^v_{ij} H_i H_j \\ &\qquad - \alpha_{ij} E_i H_j -\frac12 \beta_{ijk} E_i H_j H_k -\frac12 \gamma_{ijk}H_i E_j E_k + \ldots \end{align} Differentiating the free energy will then give the electric polarization P_i = -\frac{\partial F}{\partial E_i} and the magnetization M_i = -\frac{1}{\mu_0} \frac{\partial F}{\partial H_i}. Here, P^{s} and M^{s} are the static polarization, resp. magnetization of the material, whereas \chi^e and \chi^v are the electric, resp. magnetic susceptibilities. The tensor \alpha describes the linear magnetoelectric effect, which corresponds to an electric polarization induced linearly by a magnetic field, and vice versa. The higher terms with coefficients \beta and \gamma describe quadratic effects. For instance, the tensor \gamma describes a linear magnetoelectric effect which is, in turn, induced by an electric field. The possible terms appearing in the expansion above are constrained by symmetries of the material. Most notably, the tensor \alpha must be antisymmetric under time-reversal symmetry. Therefore, the linear magnetoelectric effect may only occur if time-reversal symmetry is explicitly broken, for instance by the explicit motion in Röntgens' example, or by an intrinsic magnetic ordering in the material. In contrast, the tensor \beta may be non-vanishing in time-reversal symmetric materials. ==Microscopic origin==

There are several ways in which a magnetoelectric effect can arise microscopically in a material. Single-ion anisotropy In crystals, spin–orbit coupling is responsible for single-ion magnetocrystalline anisotropy which determines preferential axes for the orientation of the spins (such as easy axes). An external electric field may change the local symmetry seen by magnetic ions and affect both the strength of the anisotropy and the direction of the easy axes. Thus, single-ion anisotropy can couple an external electric field to spins of magnetically ordered compounds. Symmetric Exchange striction The main interaction between spins of transition metal ions in solids is usually provided by superexchange, also called symmetric exchange. This interaction depends on details of the crystal structure such as the bond length between magnetic ions and the angle formed by the bonds between magnetic and ligand ions. In magnetic insulators it usually is the main mechanism for magnetic ordering, and, depending on the orbital occupancies and bond angles, can lead to ferro- or antiferromagnetic interactions. As the strength of symmetric exchange depends on the relative position of the ions, it couples the spin orientations to the lattice structure. Coupling of spins to a collective distortion with a net electric dipole can occur if the magnetic order breaks inversion symmetry. Thus, symmetric exchange can provide a handle to control magnetic properties through an external electric field. Strain driven magnetoelectric heterostructured effect Because materials exist that couple strain to electrical polarization (piezoelectrics, electrostrictives, and ferroelectrics) and that couple strain to magnetization (magnetostrictive/magnetoelastic/ferromagnetic materials), it is possible to couple magnetic and electric properties indirectly by creating composites of these materials that are tightly bonded so that strains transfer from one to the other. Thin film strategy enables achievement of interfacial multiferroic coupling through a mechanical channel in heterostructures consisting of a magnetoelastic and a piezoelectric component. Flexomagnetoelectric effect Magnetically driven ferroelectricity is also caused by inhomogeneous Usually it is describing using the Lifshitz invariant (i.e. single-constant coupling term): F_{FME}=\gamma_0 \bold{P}\biggl(\bold{M}(\nabla\bold{M})-(\bold{M}\nabla)\bold{M}\biggr), where \gamma_0 is a constant of flexomagnetoelectric interaction in a cubic hexoctahedral crystal. This free energy term is valid in the case of variational problem with the unknown \bold{M}(\bold{r}). It was shown that in general case of cubic m\bar{3}m crystal the four-phenomenological constants approach is correct: F_{FME}=\gamma_1 P_i \nabla_i M_i^2 + \gamma_2 \Bigl(\bold{P}\nabla\Bigr)\bold{M}^2+\gamma_3 \bold{P}\Bigl(\bold{M}\nabla\Bigr)\bold{M}+\gamma_4\Bigl(\bold{P}\bold{M}\Bigr)\nabla\bold{M} The flexomagnetoelectric effect appears in spiral multiferroics or micromagnetic structures like domain walls and magnetic vortexes. Ferroelectricity developed from micromagnetic structure can appear in any magnetic material even in centrosymmetric one. Building of symmetry classification of domain walls leads to determination of the type of electric polarization rotation in volume of any magnetic domain wall. Existing symmetry classification of magnetic domain walls was applied for predictions of electric polarization spatial distribution in their volumes. The predictions for almost all symmetry groups conform with phenomenology in which inhomogeneous magnetization couples with homogeneous polarization. The total synergy between symmetry and phenomenology theory appears if energy terms with electrical polarization spatial derivatives are taken into account. ==See also==