Sergey Artyukhin: Dynamics of domain walls in hexagonal manganites

Multiferroic hexagonal manganites are antiferromagnetic improper ferroelectrics where a structural transition with buckling of oxygen bipyramids induces polarization and, in some compounds, weak ferromagnetism. Understanding the dynamics of clamped structural, ferroelectric and magnetic domain walls (DW) in these materials is аn important step towards devices based on controlled switching in multiferroics. However, the study of DW dynamics in realistic multiferroics has been mainly focused on proper ferroelectrics and ferromagnetic materials so far, and for multiferroics was mostly limited to estimating switching barriers. We develop a model to describe the driven dynamics of DWs in hexagonal manganites, with parameters extracted from ab-initio calculations.