Critical behavior of sputter-deposited magnetoelectric antiferromagnetic Cr${}_2$O${}_3$ films near Néel temperature

Abstract

Chromium(III) oxide is a classical collinear antiferromagnet with a linear magnetoelectric effect. We are presenting the measurements of the magnetoelectric susceptibility $\alpha$ of a sputter-deposited 500-nm film and a bulk single-crystal of Cr${}_2$O${}_3$. We investigated the magnetic phase-transition and the critical exponent $\beta$ of the sublattice magnetization near Néel temperature. For the films, an exponent of 0.49(1) was found below 293 K, and changed to 1.06(4) near the Néel temperature of 298 K. For the single-crystal, the exponent was constant at 0.324(4). We investigated the reversal probability of antiferromagnetic domains during magnetoelectric field cooling. For the sputtered films, reversal probability was zero above 298 K and stabilized only below 293 K. We attribute this behavior to formation of grains during film growth, which gives different intergrain and intragrain exchange-coupling energies. For the single-crystal, reversal probability was stabilized immediately at the Néel temperature of 307.6 K.

References in corpus (6)

• Robust isothermal electric switching of interface magnetization: A route to voltage-controlled spintronics
• Purely Antiferromagnetic Magnetoelectric Random Access Memory
• Equilibrium magnetization at the boundary of a magnetoelectric antiferromagnet
• Microscopic theory of temperature-dependent magnetoelectric effect in Cr2O3
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Nanomagnetism of magnetoelectric granular thin-film antiferromagnets
• Low-energy magnetoelectric control of domain states in exchange-coupled heterostructures
• Electric field controlled magnetic exchange bias and magnetic state switching at room temperature in Ga doped α-Fe2O3 oxide
• Quadratic magnetoelectric effect during field cooling in sputter grown Cr${}_2$O${}_3$ films