Antiferromagnetic resonance in multiferroic YMnO₃ and LuMnO₃

Multiferroic rare-earth manganites have attracted much attention because of the coexistence of ferroelectric and magnetic orders. Combining conventional far-infrared Fourier-transform and THz-range free electron laser electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy techniques, magnetic excitations in hexagonal multiferroic YMnO3 and LuMnO3 in the antiferromagnetically (AFM) ordered phase have been studied. The gap in the excitation spectrum (˜42 and ˜48 cm-1 for YMnO3 and LuMnO3, respectively) was observed directly. Similar slope of the frequency-field dependences of AFM resonance modes, ˜ 0.5 cm-1/T, was revealed for both compounds. A fine structure of AFM resonance absorption has been revealed by means of high-resolution ESR techniques, which can be explained taking into account a finite interaction between the neighboring Mn^3+ layers. The work was done in collaboration with M. Ozerov, D. Kamensky, E. Cizm'ar, J. Wosnitza, A.K. Kolezhuk, D. Smirnov, H.D. Zhou, and C.R. Wiebe.