A strong ferroelectric ferromagnet created by means of spin-lattice coupling.

Ferroelectric ferromagnets are exceedingly rare, fundamentally interesting multiferroic materials that could give rise to new technologies in which the low power and high speed of field-effect electronics are combined with the permanence and routability of voltage-controlled ferromagnetism. Furthermore, the properties of the few compounds that simultaneously exhibit these phenomena are insignificant in comparison with those of useful ferroelectrics or ferromagnets: their spontaneous polarizations or magnetizations are smaller by a factor of 1,000 or more. The same holds for magnetic- or electric-field-induced multiferroics.

Epitaxial integration of the highly spin-polarized ferromagnetic semiconductor EuO with silicon and GaN.

Doped EuO is an attractive material for the fabrication of proof-of-concept spintronic devices. Yet for decades its use has been hindered by its instability in air and the difficulty of preparing and patterning high-quality thin films. Here, we establish EuO as the pre-eminent material for the direct integration of a carrier-concentration-matched half-metal with the long-spin-lifetime semiconductors silicon and GaN, using methods that transcend these difficulties.