Helical scattering signatures of strain and electronic textures in YbFe2O4 from three-dimensional reciprocal-space imaging

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.85.014115

Authors: Alexander J. Hearmon (University of Oxford) , Dharmalingam Prabhakaran (University of Oxford) , Harriott Nowell (Diamond Light Source) , Federica Fabrizi (ESRF) , Matthias J. Gutmann (ISIS Facility) , Paolo Radaelli (University of Oxford)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Physical Review B , VOL 85 (1)

State: Published (Approved)
Published: January 2012

Abstract: The insulating ternary oxide YbFe2O4 displays an unusual frustration-driven incommensurate charge-ordering (CO) transition, linked to possible ferroelectricity. Based on high-resolution synchrotron data, we report a detailed structural model showing that the CO phase is an incommensurate charge-density wave and cannot be ferroelectric, since the electrical dipole moments are also incommensurately modulated. The change between continuous and “spotty” helices of scattering at the CO transition is attributed to three-dimensional fluctuations of the direction of the ordering wave vector.

Diamond Keywords: Ferroelectricity

Subject Areas: Physics, Materials


Instruments: I19-Small Molecule Single Crystal Diffraction

Added On: 12/04/2012 08:44

Discipline Tags:

Quantum Materials Hard condensed matter - structures Materials Science

Technical Tags:

Diffraction Single Crystal X-ray Diffraction (SXRD)