A polar corundum oxide displaying weak ferromagnetism at room temperature

摘要: Combining long-range magnetic order with polarity in the same structure is a prerequisite for design of (magnetoelectric) multiferroic materials. There are now several demonstrated strategies to achieve this goal, but retaining above room temperature remains difficult target. Iron oxides +3 oxidation state have high ordering temperatures due size coupled moments. Here we prepare and characterize ScFeO3 (SFO), which under pressure strain-stabilized thin films adopts polar variant corundum structure, one archetypal binary oxide structures. Polar has weak ferromagnetic ground below 356 K—this contrast purely antiferromagnetic adopted by well-studied ferroelectric BiFeO3.