Condensed Matter Seminars

While electrostatics and magnetostatics are disparate phenomena in a vacuum, no symmetry forbids materials from responding magnetically to an electric field or vise versa. Materials with a strong magneto-electric response are of interest for applications and challenge our understanding of magnetic dielectrics. I discuss specific examples of magneto-electricity in metal oxides with triangular or kagomé lattices of spins with competing antiferromagnetic interactions [1-3]. It is shown that inversion symmetry breaking magnetic order can act as an effective electric field through magneto-elastic distortions that relieve frustration. The results presented in this talk are based on magnetic neutron scattering experiments.