An antisite defect mechanism for room temperature ferroelectricity in orthoferrites
Name
s41467-021-24592-w.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
3.4 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Ning, Shuai
Kumar, Abinash
Klyukin, Konstantin
Cho, Eunsoo
Kim, Jong Heon
Su, Tingyu
Kim, Hyun-Suk
LeBeau, James M
Yildiz, Bilge
Ross, Caroline A
Date Issued
December 2021
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Version
Final published version
Abstract
AbstractSingle-phase multiferroic materials that allow the coexistence of ferroelectric and magnetic ordering above room temperature are highly desirable, motivating an ongoing search for mechanisms for unconventional ferroelectricity in magnetic oxides. Here, we report an antisite defect mechanism for room temperature ferroelectricity in epitaxial thin films of yttrium orthoferrite, YFeO3, a perovskite-structured canted antiferromagnet. A combination of piezoresponse force microscopy, atomically resolved elemental mapping with aberration corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and density functional theory calculations reveals that the presence of YFe antisite defects facilitates a non-centrosymmetric distortion promoting ferroelectricity. This mechanism is predicted to work analogously for other rare earth orthoferrites, with a dependence of the polarization on the radius of the rare earth cation. Our work uncovers the distinctive role of antisite defects in providing a mechanism for ferroelectricity in a range of magnetic orthoferrites and further augments the functionality of this family of complex oxides for multiferroic applications.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24592-w
