Electromagnon with sensitive terahertz magnetochromism in a room-temperature magnetoelectric hexaferrite

Abstract

An electromagnon in the magnetoelectric (ME) hexaferrite Ba-0.5 Sr-2.5 Co-2 Fe-24 O-41 (Co-2 Z-type) single crystal is identified by time-domain terahertz (THz) spectroscopy. The associated THz resonance is active on the electric field (E-omega) of the THz light parallel to the c axis (parallel to [001]), whose spectral weight develops at a markedly high temperature, coinciding with a transverse conical magnetic order below 410 K. The resonance frequency of 1.03 THz at 20 K changes -8.7% and +5.8% under external magnetic field (H) of 2 kOe along [001] and [120], respectively. A model Hamiltonian describing the conical magnetic order elucidates that the dynamical ME effect arises from antiphase motion of spins which are coupled with modulating electric dipoles through the exchange striction mechanism. Moreover, the calculated frequency shift points to the key role of the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction that is altered by static electric polarization change under different H.