Control of the ferroelectricity in metastable state for orthorhombic RMnO₃ crystals

We have investigated orthorhombic $R$MnO$_{3}$ ($R$=(Gd$_{1-y}$Tb$_{y}$)) crystals near the phase boundary between the paraelectric $A$-type-antiferromagnetic (AF) phase (PA) and the ferroelectric transverse-spiral-AF one (FS). The spiral AF structure breaks inversion symmetry and induces the ferroelectric polarization through the inverse Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction. We have found that the PA-FS phase boundary is located at around 0.15$<$$y$$<$0.2. In $y$=0.15 compound, PA and FS phases appear in cooling scan, while FS is not observed in warming scan. This result suggests that FS observed in $y$=0.15 is a metastable state arising from the competition between PA and FS. Furthermore, we demonstrate the phase control between these competing phases by the application of the external magnetic field and external quasihydrostatic pressure.