A Novel Room‐Temperature Multiferroic System of Hexagonal Lu1−xInxFeO3 |
| |
Authors: | Juan Liu Tu Lai Sun Xiao Qiang Liu He Tian Ting Ting Gao Xiang Ming Chen |
| |
Affiliation: | 1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China;2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Ma'anshan, Anhui, China |
| |
Abstract: | In the present work, h‐RFeO3 multiferroic ceramics are designed and created by introducing chemical pressure (In‐substitution for Lu) in LuFeO3. Lu1?xInxFeO3 (x = 0‐0.75) ceramics are prepared by the standard solid‐state reaction process. The crystal structure of the present ceramics is tuned from centrosymmetric Pbnm (x = 0) to non‐centrosymmetric P63cm (x = 0.4–0.6), and subsequently to centrosymmetric P63/mmc (x = 0.75), while the Pbnm and P63cm biphase structure is detected for x = 0.25. The Curie temperature for the polar P63cm (x = 0.4–0.6) phase decreases from >1000 to ≈550 K with increasing x. Cloverleaf ferroelectric domain structures are determined in polar Lu0.5In0.5FeO3 samples, and the ferroelectric domain walls at atomic scale are evaluated by the aberration‐corrected high‐angle annular dark‐field scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF STEM), where the spontaneous polarization of 1.73 µC cm?2 is determined for x = 0.5. The spontaneous polarization is also confirmed by calculating the site displacement from the centrosymmetric phase based on the X‐ray diffraction (XRD) data. Meanwhile, two magnetic transitions are determined for all compositions, that is, paramagnetic to antiferromagnetic transition at Néel temperature TN (≈350 K for x = 0.4–0.6), and antiferromagnetic to weak‐ferromagnetic transition at spin‐reorientation temperature TSR. The co‐presence of ferroelectric and antiferromagnetic orders confirms the present ceramics as promising room‐temperature multiferroic materials. |
| |
Keywords: | hexagonal ferrites Lu1− xInxFeO3 room‐temperature multiferroics |
|
|