Robust Antiferromagnetic FeRh Films on Mica.

FeRh shows an antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic phase transition above room temperature, which permits its use as an antiferromagnetic memory element. However, its antiferromagnetic order is sensitive to small variations in crystallinity and composition, challenging its integration into flexible devices. Here, we show that flexible FeRh films of high crystalline quality can be synthesized by using mica as a substrate, followed by a mechanical exfoliation of the mica. The magnetic and transport data indicate that the FeRh films display a sharp antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic phase transition. Magnetotransport data allow for the observation of two distinguishable resistance states, which are written after a field-cooling procedure. It is shown that the memory states are robust under the application of magnetic fields of up to 10 kOe.

Improved polarization and endurance in ferroelectric Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 films on SrTiO3(110).

The metastable orthorhombic phase of Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 (HZO) can be stabilized in thin films on La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 (LSMO) buffered (001)-oriented SrTiO3 (STO) by intriguing epitaxy that results in (111)-HZO oriented growth and robust ferroelectric properties. Here, we show that the orthorhombic phase can also be epitaxially stabilized on LSMO/STO(110), presenting the same out-of-plane (111) orientation but a different distribution of the in-plane crystalline domains. The remanent polarization of HZO films with a thickness of less than 7 nm on LSMO/STO(110) is 33 µC cm-3, which corresponds to a 50% improvement over equivalent films on LSMO/STO(001). Furthermore, HZO on LSMO/STO(110) presents higher endurance, switchable polarization is still observed up to 4 × 1010 cycles, and retention of more than 10 years. These results demonstrate that tuning the epitaxial growth of ferroelectric HfO2, here using STO(110) substrates, allows the improvement of functional properties of relevance for memory applications.

Flexible Antiferromagnetic FeRh Tapes as Memory Elements.

The antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic transition occurring above room temperature in FeRh is attracting interest for applications in spintronics, with perspectives for robust and untraceable data storage. Here, we show that FeRh films can be grown on a flexible metallic substrate (tape shaped), coated with a textured rock-salt MgO layer, suitable for large-scale applications. The FeRh tape displays a sharp antiferromagnetic to ferromagnetic transition at about 90 °C. Its magnetic properties are preserved by bending (radii of 300 mm), and their anisotropic magnetoresistance (up to 0.05%) is used to illustrate data writing/reading capability.

Control of Polar Orientation and Lattice Strain in Epitaxial BaTiO3 Films on Silicon.

Conventional strain engineering of epitaxial ferroelectric oxide thin films is based on the selection of substrates with a suitable lattice parameter. Here, we show that the variation of oxygen pressure during pulsed laser deposition is a flexible strain engineering method for epitaxial ferroelectric BaTiO3 films either on perovskite substrates or on Si(001) wafers. This unconventional growth strategy permits continuous tuning of strain up to high levels (ε > 0.8%) in films greater than one hundred nanometers thick, as well as selecting the polar axis orientation to be either parallel or perpendicular to the substrate surface plane.

Monolithic integration of room-temperature multifunctional BaTiO3-CoFe2O4 epitaxial heterostructures on Si(001).

The multifunctional (ferromagnetic and ferroelectric) response at room temperature that is elusive in single phase multiferroic materials can be achieved in a proper combination of ferroelectric perovskites and ferrimagnetic spinel oxides in horizontal heterostructures. In this work, lead-free CoFe2O4/BaTiO3 bilayers are integrated with Si(001) using LaNiO3/CeO2/YSZ as a tri-layer buffer. They present structural and functional properties close to those achieved on perovskite substrates: the bilayers are fully epitaxial with extremely flat surface, and exhibit robust ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity at room temperature.

Optical Imaging of Nonuniform Ferroelectricity and Strain at the Diffraction Limit.

We have imaged optically the spatial distributions of ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity at the diffraction limit. Contributions to the birefringence from electro-optics--linked to ferroelectricity--as well as strain--arising from converse piezoelectric effects--have been recorded simultaneously in a BaTiO3 thin film. The concurrent recording of electro-optic and piezo-optic mappings revealed that, far from the ideal uniformity, the ferroelectric and piezoelectric responses were strikingly inhomogeneous, exhibiting significant fluctuations over the scale of the micrometer. The optical methods here described are appropriate to study the variations of these properties simultaneously, which are of great relevance when ferroelectrics are downscaled to small sizes for applications in data storage and processing.

Engineering two-dimensional superconductivity and Rashba spin-orbit coupling in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 quantum wells by selective orbital occupancy.

The discovery of two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) at oxide interfaces-involving electrons in narrow d-bands-has broken new ground, enabling the access to correlated states that are unreachable in conventional semiconductors based on s- and p- electrons. There is a growing consensus that emerging properties at these novel quantum wells-such as 2D superconductivity and magnetism-are intimately connected to specific orbital symmetries in the 2DEG sub-band structure. Here we show that crystal orientation allows selective orbital occupancy, disclosing unprecedented ways to tailor the 2DEG properties. By carrying out electrostatic gating experiments in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 wells of different crystal orientations, we show that the spatial extension and anisotropy of the 2D superconductivity and the Rashba spin-orbit field can be largely modulated by controlling the 2DEG sub-band filling. Such an orientational tuning expands the possibilities for electronic engineering of 2DEGs at LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces.

EELS tomography in multiferroic nanocomposites: from spectrum images to the spectrum volume.

Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS) in a transmission electron microscope offers the possibility of extracting high accuracy maps of composition and electronic properties through EELS spectrum images (EELS-SI). Acquiring EELS-SI for different tilt angles, a 3D tomographic reconstruction of EELS information can be achieved. In the present work we show that an EELS spectrum volume (EELS-SV), a 4D dataset where every voxel contains a full EELS spectrum, can be reconstructed from the EELS-SI tilt series by the application of multivariate analysis. We apply this novel approach to characterize a nanocomposite material consisting of CoFe2O4 nanocolumns embedded in a BiFeO3 matrix grown on a LaNiO3 buffered LaAlO3 (001) substrate.

Selectable spontaneous polarization direction and magnetic anisotropy in BiFeO3-CoFe2O4 epitaxial nanostructures.

We demonstrate that epitaxial strain engineering is an efficient method to manipulate the ferromagnetic and ferroelectric properties in BiFeO(3)-CoFe(2)O(4) columnar nanocomposites. On one hand, the magnetic anisotropy of CoFe(2)O(4) is totally tunable from parallel to perpendicular controlling the CoFe(2)O(4) strain with proper combinations of substrate and ferroelectric phase. On the other hand, the selection of the used substrate allows the growth of the rhombohedral bulk phase of BiFeO(3) or the metastable nearly tetragonal one, which implies a rotation of the ferroelectric polar axis from [111] to close to the [001] direction. Remarkably, epitaxy is preserved and interfaces are semicoherent even when lattice mismatch is above 10%. The broad range of sustainable mismatch suggests new opportunities to assemble epitaxial nanostructures combining highly dissimilar materials with distinct functionalities.