Ferroelectric order associated with ordered occupancy at the octahedral site of the inverse spinel structure of multiferroic NiFe2O4

We report a ferroelectric order at ∼98 K for NiFe2O4, which carries an inverse spinel structure with a centrosymmetric Fd3¯m structure at room temperature. The value of spontaneous electric polarization is considerably high as ∼0.29 μC/cm2 for 5 kV/cm poling field. The electric polarization decrease...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. B 2019-04, Vol.99 (14), p.144412
Main Authors: Dey, J K, Chatterjee, A, Majumdar, S, Dippel, A-C, Gutowski, O, Zimmermann, M v, Giri, S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Deoxidizing
Electric polarization
Ferroelectric materials
Ferroelectricity
Multiferroic materials
Nickel ferrites
Occupancy
Spinel
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Summary:We report a ferroelectric order at ∼98 K for NiFe2O4, which carries an inverse spinel structure with a centrosymmetric Fd3¯m structure at room temperature. The value of spontaneous electric polarization is considerably high as ∼0.29 μC/cm2 for 5 kV/cm poling field. The electric polarization decreases considerably (∼17%) around the liquid-nitrogen temperature upon application of 50 kOe field, proposing a significant magnetoelectric coupling. The synchrotron diffraction studies confirm a structural transition at ∼98 K to a noncentrosymmetric structure of P4122 space group. The occurrence of polar order is associated with an ordered occupancy of Ni and Fe atoms at the octahedral sites of the P4122 structure, instead of random occupancies at the octahedral site of the inverse spinel structure. The results propose that NiFe2O4 is a member in the type-II multiferroics.
ISSN:2469-9950
2469-9969
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.99.144412