TY - JOUR
T1 - Nanoengineering room temperature ferroelectricity into orthorhombic SmMnO3 films
AU - Choi, Eun Mi
AU - Maity, Tuhin
AU - Kursumovic, Ahmed
AU - Lu, Ping
AU - Bi, Zenxhing
AU - Yu, Shukai
AU - Park, Yoonsang
AU - Zhu, Bonan
AU - Wu, Rui
AU - Gopalan, Venkatraman
AU - Wang, Haiyan
AU - MacManus-Driscoll, Judith L.
N1 - Funding Information:
The investigators in Cambridge acknowledge support from EPSRC grants EP/ L011700/1 and EP/N004272/1, and the Isaac Newton Trust (Minute 13.38(k) and RG96474). T.M. and J.L.M.D. also acknowledge funding from EU grant H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 (745886)-MuStMAM. J.L.M.D. also acknowledges funding from the Royal Academy of Engineering, CiET1819_24. B.Z. acknowledges support from China Scholarship Council and Cambridge Commonwealth, European and International Trust. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-programme laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. Y.P. and V.G. acknowledge support from the Department of Energy grant, DESC0012375. S.Y. was supported as part of the Computational Materials Sciences Program funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, under Award Number DE-SC0020145.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41467-020-16101-2
DO - 10.1038/s41467-020-16101-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 32371855
AN - SCOPUS:85084222453
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 11
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 2207
ER -