Effects of biaxial strain on the improper multiferroicity in h-LuFeO3 films

Abstract

Elastic strain is potentially an important approach in tuning the properties of the improperly multiferroic hexagonal ferrites, the details of which have however been elusive due to the experimental difficulties. Employing the method of restrained thermal expansion, we have studied the effect of isothermal biaxial strain in the basal plane of h-LuFeO3 (001) films. The results indicate that a compressive biaxial strain significantly enhances the ferrodistortion, and the effect is larger at higher temperatures. The compressive biaxial strain and the enhanced ferrodistortion together, cause an increase in the electric polarization and a reduction in the canting of the weak ferromagnetic moments in h-LuFeO3, according to our first principle calculations. These findings are important for understanding the strain effect as well as the coupling between the lattice and the improper multiferroicity in h-LuFeO3. The experimental elucidation of the strain effect in h-LuFeO3 films also suggests that the restrained thermal expansion can be a viable method to unravel the strain effect in many other epitaxial thin film materials.

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Tuning the Magnetic Ordering Temperature of Hexagonal Ferrites by Structural Distortion Control
• Electronic structure and direct observation of ferrimagnetism in multiferroic hexagonal YbFeO3
• Magnetoelectric coupling and decoupling in multiferroic hexagonal YbFeO3 thin films
• Recent Progress on Multiferroic Hexagonal Rare-Earth Ferrites (h-RFeO3, R = Y,Dy-Lu)
• Giant interfacial spin-Hall angle from Rashba-Edelstein effect revealed by the spin-Hall Hanle processes
• Persistent Ionic Photo-responses and Frank-Condon Mechanism in Proton-transfer Ferroelectrics