https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2010-00152-0
Effect of piezomagnetism on coupling of electric and magnetic domain walls in hexagonal manganites
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Department of Physics,
Nanjing University, 210093, Nanjing, P.R. China
Corresponding author: xiaomeil@nju.edu.cn
Received:
5
November
2009
Revised:
20
April
2010
Published online:
19
May
2010
The profiles of antiferromagnetic domain walls in hexagonal manganites RMnO3 are obtained numerically depending on anisotropy and internal strain due to the lattice distortion at the ferroelectric domain walls. It is found that the piezomagnetism can lower the free energy of the system thus it favors the coupling between electric and magnetic domain walls. Due to the piezomagnetic effect, the clamped antiferromagnetic domain walls with spin orientation angle ψ changing from 0 to π have different profiles comparing with those of ψ changing from 0 to -π, and the former is energetically more favorable than the latter when the internal strain is tensile at the FEL domain walls while it is the contrary for compressive strain. Moreover, the strongest coupling between the FEL domain walls and the favorable AFM domain walls can be achieved at an optimized internal strain.
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2010
