Controlling magnetism of multiferroic (Bi0.9La0.1)2FeCrO6 thin films by epitaxial and crystallographic orientation strain

Effects of the tensile and compressive epitaxial strain and the crystallographic orientations on the structural and magnetic properties of (Bi0.9La0.1)(2)FeCrO6 (BLFCO) films were studied. The BLFCO (001) films (30 nm and 70 nm) were deposited on various single crystal substrates having lattice mismatch with the film in the range of -4.16% to +7.2%. We find that a pronounced ferromagnetic order manifests in the coherently strained films compared to that in the partially strained films. The saturation magnetic moment exhibits dissimilar effects on the type of the lattice mismatch: the coherent tensile strain is less favorable than the coherent compressive strain for the magnetic order in these films. We further establish that the ferromagnetic order exhibits maximum magnetic moment for (111)-oriented and minimum for (110)-oriented coherently strained BLFCO epitaxial films. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.