Large magnetoelectric coupling in magnetically short-range ordered Bi?Ti?FeO?? film.

ABSTRACT: Multiferroic materials, which offer the possibility of manipulating the magnetic state by an electric field or vice versa, are of great current interest. However, single-phase materials with such cross-coupling properties at room temperature exist rarely in nature; new design of nano-engineered thin films with a strong magneto-electric coupling is a fundamental challenge. Here we demonstrate a robust room-temperature magneto-electric coupling in a bismuth-layer-structured ferroelectric Bi?Ti?FeO?? with high ferroelectric Curie temperature of ~1000 K. Bi?Ti?FeO?? thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition are single-phase layered perovskit with nearly (00l)-orientation. Room-temperature multiferroic behavior is demonstrated by a large modulation in magneto-polarization and magneto-dielectric responses. Local structural characterizations by transmission electron microscopy and Mössbauer spectroscopy reveal the existence of Fe-rich nanodomains, which cause a short-range magnetic ordering at ~620 K. In Bi?Ti?FeO?? with a stable ferroelectric order, the spin canting of magnetic-ion-based nanodomains via the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction might yield a robust magneto-electric coupling of ~400 mV/Oe·cm even at room temperature.

SUBMITTER: Zhao H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4052738 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature