Striped Multiferroic Phase in Double-Exchange Model for Quarter-Doped Manganites

The phase diagram of quarter-hole-doped perovskite manganites is investigated using the double-exchange model. An exotic striped type-II multiferroic phase, where 25% of the nearest-neighbor spin couplings are orthogonal to each other, is found in the narrow-bandwidth region. Comparing with the spiral-spin ordering phase of undoped manganites, the multiferroic Curie temperature of the new phase is estimated to be similar to 4 times higher, while the ferroelectric polarization is similar in magnitude. Our study provides a path for noncollinear spin multiferroics based on electronic self-organization, different from the traditional approach based on superexchange frustration.