Speaker
Dr
Christof Schneider
(PSI)
Description
Materials featuring the co-existence of coupled magnetic and ferroelectric order allow the switching of magnetic moments by an electric field and vice versa. Experimentally, only a few multiferroic materials are known to be ferromagnetic, with the large majority being antiferromagnetically ordered. We studied thin films of orthorhombic LuMnO3, a material which is known to exhibit magnetically-induced ferroelectricity with an E type antiferromagnetic groundstate. In single crystalline like thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition on YAlO3 substrates, we identify co existing and coupled ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic orders. The ferromagnetism is located in a layer close to the substrate-film interface and extends over ~10 nm with a constant magnetic moment of ~1µB, subsequently falling off towards the film surface. This single phase material with coupled ferro-, antiferromagnetic orders thus represents an important step towards a future utilization of multiferroic materials in spintronic device with a built-in exchange bias.
Primary author
Dr
Christof Schneider
(PSI)
