Insight into magnetic, ferroelectric and elastic properties of strained BiFeO 3 thin films through Mössbauer spectroscopy

• Published in: Applied physics letters Vol. 109; no. 109
• Main Authors: Agbelele, Arsène, Sando, D., Infante, I.C., Carrétéro, C, Jouen, Samuel, Le Breton, Jean Marie, Barthélémy, Alain, Dkhil, B, Bibes, M C, Juraszek, Jean
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Institute of Physics 26-07-2016
• Subjects: Condensed Matter; Materials Science; Physics
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4959790

We have studied the magnetic order of highly strained (001)-oriented BiFeO3 (BFO) thin filmsusing 57Fe Conversion Electron M€ossbauer Spectrometry. From 90K to 620K the films exhibit acollinear antiferromagnetic structure, in contrast with the cycloidal structure observed in bulk BFO.Moreover, we find that both the planar magnetic anisotropy for compressive strain and out-of-planeanisotropy for tensile strain persist from 90K up to the Neel temperature (TN), which itself showsonly a weak strain dependence. An analysis of the line asymmetry of the paramagnetic doublet fortemperatures above TN is used to reveal the strain-dependent rotation of the polarization direction,consistent with previous observations. Our results show that the lattice dynamics in BFO films arestrongly strain-dependent, offering avenues toward acoustic phonon devices. Finally, we use theversatility of M€ossbauer spectroscopy technique to reveal various multi-property features includingmagnetic states, polarization direction and elastic strain.