Hexagonal LuFeO3 has drawn a lot of research attention due to its contentious room-temperature multiferroicity. Due to the unstability of hexagonal phase in the bulk form, most experimental studies focused on LuFeO3 thin films which can be stabilized by strain using proper substrates. Here we report on the hexagonal phase stabilization, magnetism, and magnetoelectric coupling of bulk LuFeO3 by partial Sc-substitution of Lu. First, our first-principles calculations show that the hexagonal structure can be stabilized by partial Sc substitution, while the multiferroic properties including the noncollinear magnetic order and geometric ferroelectricity remain robustly unaffected. Therefore, Lu1−xScxFeO3 can act as a platform to check the multiferroicity of LuFeO3 and related materials in the bulk form. Second, the magnetic characterizations on bulk Lu1−xScxFeO3 demonstrate a magnetic anomaly (probable antiferromagnetic ordering) above room temperature, ∼425−445 K, followed by magnetic transitions in low temperatures (∼167−172 K). In addition, a magnetoelectric response is observed in the low temperature region. Our study provides useful information on the multiferroic physics of hexagonal RFeO3 and related systems.
@article{arxiv.1602.02365,
title = {Hexagonal phase stabilization and magnetic orders of multiferroic Lu$_{1-x}$Sc$_x$FeO$_3$},
author = {L. Lin and H. M. Zhang and M. F. Liu and Shoudong Shen and S. Zhou and D. Li and X. Wang and Z. B. Yan and Z. D. Zhang and Jun Zhao and Shuai Dong and J. -M. Liu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.02365},
year = {2016}
}