The spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) of epitaxial BiFeO$_3$ thin films is investigated. SMR consistent with ferromagnetic interfacial states for BiFeO$_3$ films fabricated on (001) SrTiO$_3$ (R' BFO) and LaAlO$_3$ (T' BFO) substrates is found, albeit with different temperature dependencies. For T' BFO, the SMR is enhanced at room temperature, and decays with reduced temperatures. By contrast, R' BFO shows a monotonic decrease in SMR response with increasing temperature, mirroring the trend of a weak ferromagnet. Density functional theory shows that this difference originates from the coupling of the applied magnetic field to oxygen octahedral rotation (R') and spin (T') degrees of freedom.

An auxetic behaviour is evidenced in CoFe2O4 thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition on (100) MgO substrates under various O-2/N-2 pressures. This rare behaviour for an intrinsic material is observed for intermediate oxidation conditions, in between two non auxetic domains delimited by high (>0.05 mbar) and low (<0.03 mbar) O-2/N-2 deposition pressures. Combining X-ray resonant diffraction and Mossbauer spectroscopy, we experimentally prove that the auxetic behaviour is related to the presence of cobalt ions in the tetrahedral sites. The impact of the structural modifications caused by the various oxidation conditions on the electronic and magnetic properties are studied for the various oxidation domains. Variations as important as a transition from a p-type semiconducting to an insulating behaviour, or from an in-plane to an out-of-plane magnetization are observed when spanning from the lowest (0.01 mbar) to the highest (1 mbar) studied oxidation pressures. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The influence of film orientation, strain relaxation, and flexoelectric fields on the stability of the spin cycloid in (110)-oriented BiFeO3 epitaxial films grown on LaAlO3 substrates is investigated. By means of advanced x-ray-diffraction techniques, we show that thinner films have very large strain gradients which give rise to high flexoelectric fields. Using low-energy Raman spectroscopy and conversion electron Mossbauer spectroscopy (CEMS) we show that films up to 53 nm thick possess collinear antiferromagnetic order, with no cycloidal modulation. This suppression of the cycloid is proposed to be from strain and strain-gradient-induced flexoelectric fields. On the other hand, films thicker than 90 nm show a complex spin texture consistent with two separate cycloids, likely with different propagation directions. Interestingly, CEMS analysis suggests that the two cycloids have the same spin rotation plane. The multiple cycloids are suggested to arise from different ferroelastic domains (in turn influenced by twinning in the substrate) with different strain relaxation behaviors. These results offer insight into the factors that influence cycloid stability in the less common (110) film orientation and have implications for future magnonic devices.

BiFeO3 thin films have attracted considerable attention by virtue of their potential application in low-energy spintronic and magnonic devices. BiFeO3 possesses an intricate magnetic structure, characterized by a spin cycloid with period ∼62 nm that governs the functional magnonic response, and which can be modulated or even destroyed by strain, magnetic and electric fields, or chemical doping. The literature on (110)-oriented BiFeO3 films is not explicit in defining the conditions under which this cycloid persists, as its presence depends on synthesis method and thin-film boundary conditions, especially in the sub-100 nm thickness regime. This report aims to end “trial and error” approaches in determining the conditions under which this cycloid and its associated functional magnonic response exist. We show that in specific crystallographic orientations of epitaxial BiFeO3, an unexplored strain parameter—the distortion in the ab plane of the monoclinic unit cell—significantly influences the spin structure. Combining Mössbauer spectroscopy and low-energy Raman spectroscopy with first-principles-based effective Hamiltonian calculations, we show that both average strain and this distortion destroy the cycloid. For films grown on (110)-oriented SrTiO3 substrates, if the BiFeO3 lattice parameters a and b differ by more than about 1.2%, the cycloid is destabilized, resulting in a pseudocollinear magnetic order ground state. We are thereby able to construct a phase diagram of the spin structure for nanoscale epitaxial BiFeO3 films, which aims to resolve long-standing literature inconsistencies and provide powerful guidelines for the design of future magnonic and spintronic devices.