Room Temperature Nanoscale Ferroelectricity in Magnetoelectric GaFeO3 Epitaxial Thin Films

Abstract

We demonstrate room temperature ferroelectricity in the epitaxial thin films of magnetoelectric GaFeO3. Piezo-force measurements show a 180o phase shift of piezoresponse upon switching the electric field indicating nanoscale ferroelectricity in epitaxial thin films of gallium ferrite. Further, temperature dependent impedance analysis with and without the presence of an external magnetic field clearly reveals a pronounced magneto-dielectric effect across the magnetic transition temperature. In addition, our first principles calculations show that Fe ions are not only responsible for ferrimagnetism as observed earlier, but also give rise to the observed ferroelectricity, making GFO an unique single phase multiferroic.

15 pages, 4 main figures

References in corpus (17)

• Restoring the density-gradient expansion for exchange in solids and surfaces
• Generalized gradient approximation for solids and their surfaces
• Magnetic and electric phase control in epitaxial EuTiO${}_3$ from first principles
• Epitaxial-strain-induced multiferroicity in SrMnO${}_3$ from first principles
• Large Magneto-Dielectric Effects in Orthorhombic HoMnO3 and YMnO3
• Orientation Dependence of Ferroelectric Properties of Pulsed-Laser-Ablated Bi4-xNdxTi3O12 Films
• Polarization Switching Dynamics Governed by Thermodynamic Nucleation Process in Ultrathin Ferroelectric Films
• Ideal barriers to polarization reversal and domain-wall motion in strained ferroelectric thin films
• Electrical, magnetic, magnetodielectric and magnetoabsorption studies in multiferroic GaFeO3
• Easy collective polarization switching in ferroelectrics
• Electronic Structures, Born Effective Charges and Spontaneous Polarization in Magnetoelectric Gallium Ferrite
• Probing Magnetoelastic Coupling and Structural Changes in Magnetoelectric Gallium Ferrite
• Composition Dependence of Structural Parameters and Properties of Gallium Ferrite
• Spin Glass-like Phase below ~ 210 K in Magnetoelectric Gallium Ferrite
• Phase Stability of Multiferroic GaFeO3 up to 1368 K from In situ Neutron Diffraction
• Large Second Harmonic Kerr rotation in GaFeO3 thin films on YSZ buffered Silicon
• First Principle Study of Magnetism and Magneto-structural Coupling in Gallium Ferrite

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Multiferroic Iron Oxide Thin Films at Room-Temperature
• Natural ferroelectric order near ambient temperature in HoFeO3: A member of RFeO3 orthoferrites
• Coupling of (ferro)electricity and magnetism through Coulomb blockade in Composite Multiferroics
• Investigation of Room Temperature Ferroelectricity and Ferrimagnetism in Multiferroic AlxFe2-xO3 Epitaxial Thin Films
• Spin-Phonon Coupling, High Pressure Phase Transitions and Thermal Expansion of Multiferroic GaFeO3: A Combined First Principles and Inelastic Neutron Scattering Study
• Room temperature polarization in the ferrimagnetic Ga2-xFexO3 ceramics
• Giant Ferrimagnetism and Polarization in a Mixed Metal Perovskite Metal-Organic Framework
• Room-temperature multiferroicity in GaFeO${}_3$ thin film grown on (100)Si substrate
• Heat capacity anomaly near magnetic phase transition in GaFeO${}_3$
• Electrical polarization switching in bulk single crystal GaFeO${}_3$
• Magnetic Field Tunable Capacitive Dielectric:Ionic-liquid Sandwich Composites
• Mössbauer measurements of GaFeO${}_3$ single crystal multiferroic
• Ferroelectric polarization switching with a remarkably high activation-energy in orthorhombic GaFeO3 thin films