TY - JOUR
T1 - Manipulating magnetoelectric energy landscape in multiferroics
AU - Huang, Yen Lin
AU - Nikonov, Dmitri
AU - Addiego, Christopher
AU - Chopdekar, Rajesh V.
AU - Prasad, Bhagwati
AU - Chatterjee, Jyotirmoy
AU - Zhang, Lei
AU - Liu, Heng-Jui
AU - Farhan, Alan
AU - Chu, Ying-Hao
AU - Yang, Mengmeng
AU - Ramesh, Maya
AU - Qiu, Zi Qiang
AU - Huey, Bryan D.
AU - Lin, Chia-Ching
AU - Gosavi, Tanay
AU - Íñiguez, Jorge
AU - Bokor, Jeffrey
AU - Pan, Xiaoqing
AU - Young, Ian
AU - Martin, Lane W.
AU - Ramesh, Ramamoorthy
PY - 2020/6/5
Y1 - 2020/6/5
N2 - Magnetoelectric coupling at room temperature in multiferroic materials, such as BiFeO3, is one of the leading candidates to develop low-power spintronics and emerging memory technologies. Although extensive research activity has been devoted recently to exploring the physical properties, especially focusing on ferroelectricity and antiferromagnetism in chemically modified BiFeO3, a concrete understanding of the magnetoelectric coupling is yet to be fulfilled. We have discovered that La substitutions at the Bi-site lead to a progressive increase in the degeneracy of the potential energy landscape of the BiFeO3 system exemplified by a rotation of the polar axis away from the < 111 > (pc) towards the < 112 > (pc) discretion. This is accompanied by corresponding rotation of the antiferromagnetic axis as well, thus maintaining the right-handed vectorial relationship between ferroelectric polarization, antiferromagnetic vector and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya vector. As a consequence, La-BiFeO3 films exhibit a magnetoelectric coupling that is distinctly different from the undoped BiFeO3 films. BiFeO3 has a wide application but the impact of rare-earth substitution for the evolution of the coupling mechanism is unknown. Here, the authors reveal the correlation between ferroelectricity, antiferromagnetism, a weak ferromagnetic moment, and their switching pathways in La-substituted BiFeO3.
AB - Magnetoelectric coupling at room temperature in multiferroic materials, such as BiFeO3, is one of the leading candidates to develop low-power spintronics and emerging memory technologies. Although extensive research activity has been devoted recently to exploring the physical properties, especially focusing on ferroelectricity and antiferromagnetism in chemically modified BiFeO3, a concrete understanding of the magnetoelectric coupling is yet to be fulfilled. We have discovered that La substitutions at the Bi-site lead to a progressive increase in the degeneracy of the potential energy landscape of the BiFeO3 system exemplified by a rotation of the polar axis away from the < 111 > (pc) towards the < 112 > (pc) discretion. This is accompanied by corresponding rotation of the antiferromagnetic axis as well, thus maintaining the right-handed vectorial relationship between ferroelectric polarization, antiferromagnetic vector and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya vector. As a consequence, La-BiFeO3 films exhibit a magnetoelectric coupling that is distinctly different from the undoped BiFeO3 films. BiFeO3 has a wide application but the impact of rare-earth substitution for the evolution of the coupling mechanism is unknown. Here, the authors reveal the correlation between ferroelectricity, antiferromagnetism, a weak ferromagnetic moment, and their switching pathways in La-substituted BiFeO3.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85085987429&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-020-16727-2
DO - 10.1038/s41467-020-16727-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 32504063
VL - 11
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
IS - 1
M1 - 2836
ER -