“fingerprint” for the multiferroic ground state of 3.5% Ga-doped CuFeO 2. The complex
ground state is stabilized by the displacement of the oxygen atoms, which contribute to the
multiferroic coupling predicted in the “spin-driven” model. By comparing the observed and
calculated spectrum of spin excitations, we conclude that the magnetic ground state is a
distorted screw-type spin configuration with a distribution of turn angles.