arXiv · 1702.01635
Temperature induced phase transition from cycloidal to collinear antiferromagnetism in multiferroic Bi$_{0.9}$Sm$_{0.1}$FeO$_3$ driven by $f$-$d$ induced magnetic anisotropy
Abstract
In multiferroic BiFeO$_3$ a cycloidal antiferromagnetic structure is coupled to a large electric polarization at room temperature, giving rise to magnetoelectric functionality that may be exploited in novel multiferroic-based devices. In this paper, we demonstrate that by substituting samarium for 10% of the bismuth ions the periodicity of the room temperature cycloid is increased, and by cooling below $\sim15$ K the magnetic structure tends towards a simple G-type antiferromagnet, which is fully established at 1.5 K. We show that this transition results from $f-d$ exchange coupling, which induces a local anisotropy on the iron magnetic moments that destroys the cycloidal order - a result of general significance regarding the stability of non-collinear magnetic structures in the presence of multiple magnetic sublattices.
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R. D. Johnson, P. A. McClarty, D. D. Khalyavin, P. Manuel, P. Svedlindh, C. S. Knee. 2017-02-06. Temperature induced phase transition from cycloidal to collinear antiferromagnetism in multiferroic Bi$_{0.9}$Sm$_{0.1}$FeO$_3$ driven by $f$-$d$ induced magnetic anisotropy. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.95.054420
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