Intertwined Polar, Chiral, and Ferro-Rotational Orders in a Homo-Ferro-Rotational Insulator

Read full text
Authors: Weizhe Zhang, June Ho Yeo, Xiaoyu Guo, Tony Chiang, Nishkarsh Agarwal, John T. Heron, Kai Sun, Junjie Yang, Sang‐Wook Cheong, Youngjun Ahn, Liuyan Zhao
Cited by: 0

Abstract

Intertwined orders refer to strongly coupled and mutually dependent orders that coexist in correlated electron systems, often underpinning key physical properties of the host materials. Among them, polar, chiral, and ferro-rotational orders have been theoretically known to form a closed set of intertwined orders. However, experimental investigation into their mutual coupling and physical consequences has remained elusive. In this work, we employ the polar-chiral insulator Ni 3 TeO 6 as a platform and utilize a multimodal optical approach to directly probe and reveal the intertwining among polarity, chirality, and ferro-rotational order. We demonstrate how their coupling governs the formation of domains and dictates the nature of domain walls. Within the domains, we identify spatial inversion symmetry as the operation connecting two domain states of opposite polarity and chirality, with a homo-ferro-rotational state serving as the prerequisite for these interlocked configurations. At the domain walls, we observe a pronounced enhancement of in-plane polarization accompanied by a suppression of chirality. By combining with Ginzburg-Landau theory within the framework of a preexisting homo-ferro-rotational background, we uncover the emergence of mixed Néel- and Bloch-type domain walls. Our findings highlight the critical role of intertwined orders in defining domain and domain-wall characteristics and open pathways for domain switching and domain-wall control via intertwined order parameters.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Topological Materials and Phenomena Multiferroics and related materials Crystal Structures and Properties

Publication details

Journal / source
Physical Review X
Volume
16
Issue
2
Publication date
30 March 2026
Language
EN