Comparison of the magnetic and crystal field excitations in orthorhombically distorted vanadates and multiferroic manganites

Magnetism and ferroelectricity are both exciting physical properties and are used in everyday life in sensors and data storage. In multiferroic materials both properties coexist. They offer a great potential for future technological applications like the increase of data storage capacity or in novel senor applications. We have performed a comparative inelastic neutron scattering (INS) investigation on a series of vanadates, in particularly TbV03 DyV03, PrV03, and CeV03, with their multiferroic Mn-counterparts. The Vanadates are isostructural to the multiferroic materials TbMnO3 and DyMn03, but posses a collinear antiferromagnetic spin arrangement below TN ≈110 K instead of a cycloidal spin structure below TFE 28 ≈K. By using inelastic neutron scattering we have obtained the spin wave dispersion relation and the crystal field excitations of the V-sublattice and the rare earth ions, respectively. The data will be compared with previously obtained INS data of D. Senff on TbMnO3 and our INS data on DyMnO3 with the intention of uncovering information about the complex interplay between the magnetic moments of the rare earth ions its role in the formation of the multiferroic phase.