Ferroelectricity in a diatomic Ising chain as investigated by the elastic Ising model

An elastic Ising model for a one-dimensional diatomic spin chain is proposed to explain the ferroelectricity induced by the collinear magnetic order with a low-excited energy state. A statistical theory based on this model is developed to calculate the electrical and magnetic properties of Ca₃CoMnO₆, a typical quasi-one-dimensional diatomic spin chain system. The calculated ferroelectric polarization and dielectric susceptibility show a good agreement with recently reported data on Ca₃Co_2-xMn_xO₆ (x ≈0.96) (Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 047601 (2008)), although the predicted magnetic susceptibility does not coincide well with experiment. We also address the rationality and deficiency of this model by including a first-order correction which improves the consistency between the model and experiment.