Control of chiral magnetism through electric fields in multiferroic compounds above the long-range multiferroic transition

Polarized neutron scattering experiments reveal that type-II multiferroics allow for controlling the spin chirality by external electric fields even in the absence of long-range multiferroic order. In the two prototype compounds TbMnO3 and MnWO4, chiral magnetism associated with soft overdamped electromagnons can be observed above the long-range multiferroic transition temperature TMF, and it is possible to control it through an electric field. While MnWO4 exhibits chiral correlations only in a tiny temperature interval above TMF, in TbMnO3 chiral magnetism can be observed over several kelvin up to the lock-in transition, which is well separated from TMF.