Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 5, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5796
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Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [SFB 608]
- Swiss National Science Foundation [CRSII2_147606/1]
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) [CRSII2_147606] Funding Source: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF)
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Electric dipoles and ferroelectricity violate spatial inversion symmetry, and magnetic dipoles and ferromagnetism break time-inversion symmetry. Breaking both symmetries favours magnetoelectric charge-spin coupling effects of enormous interest, such as multiferroics, skyrmions, polar superconductors, topological insulators or dynamic phenomena such as electromagnons. Extending the rationale, a novel type of ferroic order violating space- and time-inversion symmetry with a single order parameter should exist. This existence is fundamental and the inherent magnetoelectric coupling is technologically interesting. A uniform alignment of magnetic vortices, called ferrotoroidicity, was proposed to represent this state. Here we demonstrate that the magnetic vortex pattern identified in LiCoPO4 exhibits the indispensable hallmark of such a ferroic state, namely hysteretic poling of ferrotoroidic domains in the conjugate toroidal field, along with a distinction of toroidal from non-toroidal poling effects. This consolidates ferrotoroidicity as fourth form of ferroic order.
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