SNSF | P3 Research Database | Publication Emergent spin-1 Haldane gap and ferroelectricity in a frustrated spin-1/2 ladder

Emergent spin-1 Haldane gap and ferroelectricity in a frustrated spin-1/2 ladder

Type of publication	Peer-reviewed
Publikationsform	Original article (peer-reviewed)

Author	Ueda H., Onoda S., Yamaguchi Y., Kimura T., Yoshizawa D., Morioka T., Hagiwara M., Hagihala M., Soda M., Masuda T., Sakakibara T., Tomiyasu K., Ohira-Kawamura S., Nakajima K., Kajimoto R., Nakamura M., Inamura Y., Reynolds N., Frontzek M., White J.S., Hase M., Yasui Y.,
Project	Exploration of emerging magnetoelectric coupling effects in new materials

Original article (peer-reviewed)

Journal	Physical Review B
Volume (Issue)	101(14)
Page(s)	140408 - 140408
Title of proceedings	Physical Review B
DOI	10.1103/physrevb.101.140408

Open Access

URL	https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.07081
Type of Open Access	Repository (Green Open Access)

Abstract

We report experimental and theoretical evidence that Rb2Cu2Mo3O12 has a nonmagnetic tetramer ground state of a two-leg ladder comprising antiferromagnetically coupled frustrated spin-1/2 chains and exhibits a Haldane spin gap of emergent spin-1 pairs. Three spin excitations split from the spin-1 triplet by a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction are identified in inelastic neutron-scattering and electron spin resonance spectra. A tiny magnetic field generates ferroelectricity without closing the spin gap, indicating a unique class of ferroelectricity induced by a vector spin chirality order.