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Nanoengineering room temperature ferroelectricity into orthorhombic SmMnO₃ films

Choi, E-M; Maity, T; Kursumovic, A; Lu, P; Bi, Z; Yu, S; Park, Y; ... MacManus-Driscoll, JL; + view all (2020) Nanoengineering room temperature ferroelectricity into orthorhombic SmMnO₃ films. Nature Communications , 11 , Article 2207. 10.1038/s41467-020-16101-2. Green open access

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Abstract

Orthorhombic RMnO3 (R = rare-earth cation) compounds are type-II multiferroics induced by inversion-symmetry-breaking of spin order. They hold promise for magneto-electric devices. However, no spontaneous room-temperature ferroic property has been observed to date in orthorhombic RMnO3. Here, using 3D straining in nanocomposite films of (SmMnO3)0.5((Bi,Sm)2O3)0.5, we demonstrate room temperature ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism with TC,FM ~ 90 K, matching exactly with theoretical predictions for the induced strain levels. Large in-plane compressive and out-of-plane tensile strains (−3.6% and +4.9%, respectively) were induced by the stiff (Bi,Sm)2O3 nanopillars embedded. The room temperature electric polarization is comparable to other spin-driven ferroelectric RMnO3 films. Also, while bulk SmMnO3 is antiferromagnetic, ferromagnetism was induced in the composite films. The Mn-O bond angles and lengths determined from density functional theory explain the origin of the ferroelectricity, i.e. modification of the exchange coupling. Our structural tuning method gives a route to designing multiferroics.

Type: Article
Title: Nanoengineering room temperature ferroelectricity into orthorhombic SmMnO₃ films
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16101-2
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16101-2
Language: English
Additional information: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords: Condensed-matter physics, Ferroelectrics and multiferroics, Materials science
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Chemistry
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10123587
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