TY - JOUR
T1 - Observation of current-induced bulk magnetization in elemental tellurium
AU - Furukawa, Tetsuya
AU - Shimokawa, Yuri
AU - Kobayashi, Kaya
AU - Itou, Tetsuaki
N1 - Funding Information:
T.I. thanks F. Kagawa and M. Hirayama for inspiring discussion at the early stage of this project. We thank T. Yasui and N. Enomoto for experimental assistance, and N. Miyakawa for his help in attaching electrodes to the sample. We also especially thank N. Miura for the sample preparation, and M. Tokunaga for the sample preparation, stimulating discussion, and helpful suggestions for improving the manuscript. This work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Nos. 15K13524, 25220709.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Author(s).
PY - 2017/12/1
Y1 - 2017/12/1
N2 - The magnetoelectric effect in bulk matter is of growing interest both fundamentally and technologically. Since the beginning of the century, the magnetoelectric effect has been studied intensively in multiferroic materials. However, magnetoelectric phenomena in materials without any (anti-)ferroic order remain almost unexplored. Here we show the observation of a new class of bulk magnetoelectric effect, by revisiting elemental trigonal tellurium. We demonstrate that elemental tellurium, which is a nonmagnetic semiconductor, exhibits current-induced magnetization. This effect is attributed to spin splitting of the bulk band owing to the lack of inversion symmetry in trigonal tellurium. This finding highlights magnetoelectricity in bulk matter driven by moving electrons without any (anti-)ferroic order. Notably, current-induced magnetization generates a magnetic field that is not circular around but is parallel to the applied current; thus, this phenomenon opens a new area of magnetic field generation beyond Ampere's law that may lead to industrial applications.
AB - The magnetoelectric effect in bulk matter is of growing interest both fundamentally and technologically. Since the beginning of the century, the magnetoelectric effect has been studied intensively in multiferroic materials. However, magnetoelectric phenomena in materials without any (anti-)ferroic order remain almost unexplored. Here we show the observation of a new class of bulk magnetoelectric effect, by revisiting elemental trigonal tellurium. We demonstrate that elemental tellurium, which is a nonmagnetic semiconductor, exhibits current-induced magnetization. This effect is attributed to spin splitting of the bulk band owing to the lack of inversion symmetry in trigonal tellurium. This finding highlights magnetoelectricity in bulk matter driven by moving electrons without any (anti-)ferroic order. Notably, current-induced magnetization generates a magnetic field that is not circular around but is parallel to the applied current; thus, this phenomenon opens a new area of magnetic field generation beyond Ampere's law that may lead to industrial applications.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-017-01093-3
DO - 10.1038/s41467-017-01093-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 29038458
AN - SCOPUS:85031798667
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 8
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 954
ER -