γ-BaFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub>: a fresh playground for room temperature multiferroicity.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36575166.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-35669-5 and PMC identifier 9794801.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Multiferroics, showing the coexistence of two or more ferroic orderings at room temperature, could harness a revolution in multifunctional devices. However, most of the multiferroic compounds known to date are not magnetically and electrically ordered at ambient conditions, so the discovery of new materials is pivotal to allow the development of the field. In this work, we show that BaFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub> is a previously unrecognized room temperature multiferroic. X-ray and neutron diffraction allowed to reveal the polar crystal structure of the compound as well as its antiferromagnetic behavior, confirmed by bulk magnetometry characterizations. Piezo force microscopy and electrical measurements show the polarization to be switchable by the application of an external field, while symmetry analysis and calculations based on density functional theory reveal the improper nature of the ferroelectric component. Considering the present findings, we propose BaFe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>4</sub> as a Bi- and Pb-free model for the search of new advanced multiferroic materials.