Dresden 2014 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 21: Multiferroics II (jointly with DF, DS, KR, TT)
MA 21.4: Talk
Wednesday, April 2, 2014, 10:15–10:30, HSZ 04
BiFeO3/LaFeO3: a magnetoelectric multiferroic — •Zeila Zanolli1,3, Jacek Wojdel2, Jorge Iniguez2, and Philippe Ghosez3 — 1Forschungszentrum Jülich, PGI and IAS, Jülich, Germany — 2ICMAB-CSIC, Bellaterra, Spain — 3Université de Liège, Physics Department, Lieǵe, Belgium
Transition-metal oxides of perovskite structure present a wide variety of physical properties. In particular, there is a strong interest in multiferroic materials that are simultaneously ferroelectric and magnetic (magnetoelectrics). Due to the scarcity of natural magnetoelectric multiferroics and thanks to recent advances in epitaxial growth techniques, designing new magnetoelectric multiferroic heterostructures is a promising way to succeed in this quest.
First-principles techniques are used to investigate electric control of the magnetization in the BiFeO3/LaFeO3 perovskite oxide superlattice (SL) on a (001)-SrTiO3 substrate. Our results [1] show that the BiFeO3/LaFeO3 SL exhibits a trilinear coupling of a polar mode with two different rotations of the oxygen cages (hybrid improper ferroelectricity). Non-collinear spin calculations reveal that the ferroelectric ground state also presents weak ferromagnetism with easy axis along the [1 -1 0] direction. The microscopic mechanism allowing one to manipulate the magnetization with an electric field in such systems is presented and its dependence on strain and chemical substitution is discussed. The BiFeO3/LaFeO3 SL is found to be a good candidate to attain electric switching of magnetization at room temperature.
[1] Phys. Rev. B 88, 060102(R) (2013)