Strain-induced ferromagnetism in antiferromagnetic LuMnO3 thin films

Phys Rev Lett. 2013 Jul 19;111(3):037201. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.037201. Epub 2013 Jul 17.

Abstract

Single phase and strained LuMnO(3) thin films are discovered to display coexisting ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic orders. A large moment ferromagnetism (≈1μ(B)), which is absent in bulk samples, is shown to display a magnetic moment distribution that is peaked at the highly strained substrate-film interface. We further show that the strain-induced ferromagnetism and the antiferromagnetic order are coupled via an exchange field, therefore demonstrating strained rare-earth manganite thin films as promising candidate systems for new multifunctional devices.