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Among the 3d transition metal ions doped polar Ni3TeO6, Mn-doped Ni3TeO6 has stimulated great interest due to its high magnetic ordering temperature and complex magnetic phases, but the mechanism of magnetoelectric (ME) coupling is far from understood. Herein we report our systematic investigation of the chemical control of magnetism, metamagnetic transition, and ME properties of Ni3-xMnxTeO6 single crystals in high magnetic field (H) up to 52 T. We present a previously unreported weak ferromagnetic behavior appeared in the ab plane below 9.5 K in addition to the incommensurate helical and commensurate collinear antiferromagnetic states. In the low-field region, a spin-flop type metamagnetic transition without any hysteresis occurs at Hc1 for H // c, while another metamagnetic transition accompanied with a change in electric polarization is observed at Hc2 in the high-field region both for H // c and H // ab above 30 K, which can be attributed to the sudden rotation of magnetic moments at Ni2 sites. The ME measurements reveal that a first-order ME effect is observed in the low-T and low-H regions, while a second-order ME coupling term appears above 30 K in the magnetic field range of Hc1 < H < Hc2 for H // c and H < Hc2 for H // ab, both becoming significant with increasing temperature. Eventually, they are dominated by the second-order ME effect near the antiferromagnetic transition temperature. The present work demonstrates that Ni3-xMnxTeO6 is an exotic magnetoelectric material compared with Ni3TeO6 and its derivatives, thereby providing insights to better understand the magnetism and ME coupling in Ni3TeO6 and its derivatives., Comment: 30 pages with 8 figures

Sr2IrO4 hosts a novel Jeff =1/2 Mott state and quasi-two-dimensional antiferromagnetic order, providing a unique avenue of exploring emergent states of matter and functions that are extraordinarily sensitive to any structural variations. While the correlation between the physical property and lattice structure in Sr2IrO4 has been a focused issue in the past decade, a common perception assumes that the magnetic ordering is essentially determined by the Ir-O-Ir bond angle. Therefore, a delicate modulation of this angle and consequently a major modulation of the magnetic ordering, by chemical doping such as Ga at Ir site, has been extensively investigated and well believed. In this work, however, we present a whole package of structure and magnetism data on a series of single crystal and polycrystalline Sr2Ir1-xGaxO4 samples, revealing the substantial difference in the N\'eel temperature TN between the two types of samples, and the TN value for the polycrystalline sample x = 0.09 is even 64 K higher than that of the single crystal sample x = 0.09 (deltaTN ~ 64 K at x = 0.09). Our systematic investigations demonstrate the crucial role of the c/a ratio in tuning the interlayer coupling and thereby the Neel point TN, i.e. a higher TN can be achieved as c/a is reduced. The notable differences in structural parameters between the two groups of samples are probably caused by additional strain due to the massive grain boundaries in polycrystalline samples. The present work suggests an additional ingredient of physics that is essential in modulating the emergent properties in Sr2IrO4 and probably other iridates.

In this work, we report observation of strain effect on physical properties of Sr2IrO4 thin films grown on SrTiO3 (001) and LaAlO3 (001) substrates. It is found that the film on LaAlO3 with compressive strain has a lower antiferromagnetic transition temperature (TN~210 K) than the film on SrTiO3 (TN~230 K) with tensile strain, which is probably caused by modified interlayer coupling. Interestingly, magnetoresistance due to pseudospin-flip of the film on LaAlO3 is much larger than that of tensile-strained film on SrTiO3, and robust anisotropic magnetoresistance is observed in the former, but H-driven reversal behavior is seen in the latter. By performing first principles calculations, it is revealed that epitaxial strain plays an efficient role in tuning the canting angle of Jeff=1/2 moments and thus net moment at every IrO2 layer, responsible for the difference in magnetoresistance between the films. The reversal of anisotropic magnetoresistance in the thin film on SrTiO3 can be ascribed to stabilization of a metastable stable with smaller bandgap as the Jeff=1/2 moments are aligned along the diagonal of basal plane by H. However, theoretical calculations reveal much higher magnetocrystalline anisotropy energy in the film on LaAlO3. This causes difficulties to drive the Jeff=1/2 moments to reach the diagonal and thereby the metastable state, explaining the distinct anisotropic magnetoresistance between two samples in a qualitative sense. Our findings indicate that strain can be a highly efficient mean to engineer the functionalities of Jeff=1/2 antiferromagnet Sr2IrO4., Comment: 21 pages and 5 figures

The explosive growth of artificial intelligence and data-intensive computing has brought crucial challenge to modern information science and technology, i.e. conceptually new devices with superior properties are urgently desired. Memristor is recognized as a very promising circuit element to tackle the barriers, because of its fascinating advantages in imitating neural network of human brain, and thus realizing in-memory computing. However, there exist two core and fundamental issues: energy efficiency and accuracy, owing to the electric current operation of traditional memristors. In the present work, we demonstrate a new type of memristor, i.e. charge q and magnetic flux {\phi} space memristor, enabled by linear magnetoelectricity of Co4Nb2O9. The memory states show distinctly linear magnetoelectric coefficients with a large ratio of about 10, ensuing exceptional accuracy of related devices. The present q-{\phi} type memristor can be manipulated by magnetic and electric fields without involving electric current, paving the way to develop ultralow-energy-consuming devices. In the meanwhile, it is worth to mention that Co4Nb2O9 hosts an intrinsic compensated antiferromagnetic structure, which suggests interesting possibility of further integrating the unique merits of antiferromagnetic spintronics such as ultrahigh density and ultrafast switching. Linear magnetoelectricity is proposed to essential to the q-{\phi} type memristor, which would be accessible in a broad class of multiferroics and other magnetoelectric materials such as topological insulators. Our findings could therefore advance memristors towards new levels of functionality., Comment: 4 figures