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Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) is one of the rare materials which exhibits multiferroic properties already at room temperature. Therefore, it offers tremendous potential for future technological applications, such as in low-energy, high-density data storage or logic devices in IT. BiFeO3 possesses a G-type antiferromagnetic structure, where the Fe3+ spins form an incommensurate spin cycloid. Exploring and understanding the effects of an electric field, magnetic field, strain and film thickness allows for the manipulation of the spin cycloid and is therefore of major interest for future technologies. By performing neutron diffraction experiments using the triple-axis instrument Taipan at ANSTO we have determined that the spin cycloid can be systematically suppressed at an applied magnetic field of 10 T in a BiFeO3 thin film of 100 nm thickness grown on a (110)-oriented SrTiO3 substrate [1]. As predicted by theoretical calculations, we observed that the required critical magnetic field to suppress the spin cycloid in a BiFeO3 thin film was significantly lower as compared to the previously reported critical magnetic field for bulk BiFeO3. Furthermore, in contrast to bulk single crystals, the spin cycloid in the BiFeO3 thin film continuously expands with increasing magnetic field before the complete transformation into a G-type antiferromagnetic spin order. Such tuning of the length of the spin cycloid up to its complete suppression offers further functionalities for future applications in spintronics or magnonics.
[1] Md. Firoz Pervez, et al., Phys. Rev. B 111, 174426 (2025).
| Field of Condensed Matter | Magnetism |
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