We have discovered strong magnetoelectric (ME) effects in the single chiral-helical magnetic state of single-crystalline langasite Ba3NbFe3Si2O14 that is crystallographically chiral. The ferroelectric polarization, predominantly aligned along the a a
xis below the Neel temperature of ~27 K, changes in a highly non-linear fashion in the presence of in-plane magnetic fields (H) perpendicular to the a axis (H//b*). This ME effect as well as smaller ME effects in other directions exhibit no poling dependence, suggesting the presence of a self-formed single ME domain. In addition, these ME effects accompany no-measurable hysteresis, which is crucial for many technological applications.
Although abundant research has focused recently on the quantum criticality of itinerant magnets, critical phenomena of insulating magnets in the vicinity of critical endpoints (CEPs) have rarely been revealed. Here we observe an emergent CEP at 2.05
T and 2.2 K with a suppressed thermal conductivity and concomitant strong critical fluctuations evident via a divergent magnetic susceptibility (e.g., chi(2.05 T, 2.2 K)/chi(3 T, 2.2 K)=23,500 %, comparable to the critical opalescence in water) in the hexagonal insulating antiferromagnet HoMnO3.
