Multiferroic Iron Oxide Thin Films at Room-Temperature

Abstract

In spite of being highly relevant for the development of a new generation of information storage devices, not many single-phase materials displaying magnetic and ferroelectric orders above room temperature are known. Moreover, these uncommon materials typically display insignificant values of the remanent moment in one of the ferroic orders or are complex multicomponent oxides which will be very challenging to integrate in devices. Here we report on the strategy to stabilize the metastable epsilon-Fe2O3 in thin film form, and we show that besides its already known ferrimagnetic nature, the films are also ferroelectric at 300 K with a remanent polarization of 1 microC/cm2. The film polarization shows long retention times and can be switched under small applied voltages. These characteristics make of epsilon-Fe2O3 the first single-ion transition-metal oxide which is ferro(ferri)magnetic and ferroelectric at room temperature. The simple composition of this new multiferroic oxide and the discovery of a robust path for its thin film growth may boost the exploitation of epsilon-Fe2O3 in novel devices.

27 pages, 11 figures; Advanced Materials 2014

References in corpus (8)

• Giant sharp magnetoelectric switching in multiferroic epitaxial La_{0.67}Sr_{0.33}MnO_3 on BaTiO_3
• Dual-Frequency Resonance-Tracking Atomic Force Microscopy
• Electric field control of exchange bias in multiferroic epitaxial heterostructures
• Magnetization Reversal by Electric-Field Decoupling of Magnetic and Ferroelectric Domains Walls in Multiferroic-Based Heterostructures
• Room Temperature Nanoscale Ferroelectricity in Magnetoelectric GaFeO3 Epitaxial Thin Films
• Magnetoelectric Coupling in epsilon-Fe2O3
• Multiferroic and magnetoelectric nature of GaFeO3, AlFeO3 and related oxides
• Electromagnon in ferrimagnetic eps-Fe2O3 nanograin ceramics

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Engineering Ferroelectric Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 Thin Films by Epitaxial Stress
• Determination of intrinsic ferroelectric polarization in lossy improper ferroelectric systems
• Multiferroic RMnO3 thin films
• Spin Hall magnetoresistance as a probe for surface magnetization in Pt/CoFe${}_2$O${}_4$ bilayers
• Switching of both local ferroelectric and magnetic domains in multiferroic Bi0.9La0.1FeO3 thin film by mechanical force
• Tunable polymorphism of epitaxial iron oxides in the four-in-one ferroic-on-GaN system with magnetically ordered α-, γ-, ε-Fe2O3 and Fe3O4 layers
• Investigation of Room Temperature Ferroelectricity and Ferrimagnetism in Multiferroic AlxFe2-xO3 Epitaxial Thin Films
• Temperature and field evolution of site-dependent magnetism in $\epsilon$-Fe${}_2$O${}_3$ nanoparticles
• Spin Seebeck effect in $\epsilon$-Fe${}_2$O${}_3$ thin layer with high coercive field
• Room temperature polarization in the ferrimagnetic Ga2-xFexO3 ceramics
• Multiferroic Bi${}_2$NiMnO${}_6$ Thin Films: A Computational Prediction
• Stabilization of $\epsilon$-Fe${}_2$O${}_3$ epitaxial layer on MgO(111)/GaN via an intermediate $\gamma$-Fe${}_2$O${}_3$-phase
• Structural peculiarities of $\epsilon$-Fe${}_2$O${}_3$ / GaN epitaxial layers unveiled by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and neutron reflectometry
• Metallic ferroelectric-ferromagnetic multiferroics in strained EuTiO${}_{3-x}$H${}_x$
• Structural and magnetic properties in sputtered iron oxide epitaxial thin films -- Magnetite Fe${}_3$O${}_4$ and epsilon ferrite e-Fe${}_2$O${}_3$
• Multiferroic Decorated Fe2O3 Monolayer Predicted from First Principles