单相多铁性材料中静态与动态磁电效应研究新进展

Progress and Current Trends on the Study of the Static and Dynamical Magnetoelectric Effects in Single Phase Multiferroics

多铁性材料是一类新型多功能材料,其中磁有序与铁电序共存,且序参量之间存在非平庸的相互耦合效应。这使其具有巨大的工业应用前景并蕴含着丰富和有趣的基础物理问题。本文首先简要回顾多铁性材料研究的历史,重点介绍由磁有序引起的新型多铁性材料的实验和理论的新进展。随后,我们系统地概述多铁性材料中演生的一类新的元激发(即电磁振子)的物理特性以及当前对其产生机制的理解。最后,我们总结了多铁性材料研究中尚未解决的技术问题,并展望了多铁性材料的发展趋势。

Multiferroics refers to a new class of multifunctional materials in which the magnetic and electric orders coexist in a single compound and nontrival magneto-electric coupling is in presence. There will be potential applications in practical industry and information device for those multifunc- tionM materials in which there are also very rich fundamental physics implied. In this paper, we review the past progress and current trends in the studies on multiferroic materials. After a short introduction of the history of the multiferroics, we discuss in detail the classification of various multiferroics according to the mechanism that drives the ferroelectricity, where special attention is given to review the most recent advances in the experimental and theoretical aspects of spin-driven multiferroics. Then we systematically address a new type of elementary excitation, electromagnon, emerged in the multiferroics, and provide an overview of the key experimental phenomena and current theoretical understandings. Finally, we summarize the major scientific challenges and outline the perspective views of the field in the near future.