Hexagonal LuInFeO Room-Temperature Multiferroic Thin Films.

The hexagonal rare earth ferrites -RFeO(R = rare earth element) have been recognized as promising candidates for a room-temperature multiferroic system, and the primary issue for these materials is how to get a stable hexagonal structure since the centrosymmetric orthorhombic structure is generally stable for most RFeO at room-temperature, while the hexagonal phase is only stable under some strict conditions. In the present work, -LuInFeO ( = 0-1) thin films were prepared on a Nb-SrTiO (111) single-crystal substrate by a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process, and the multiferroic characterization was performed at room temperature. With the combined effects of chemical pressure and epitaxial strain, the stable hexagonal structure was achieved in a wide composition range ( = 0.