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A Novel Multiferroic System: Rare Earth Chromates, Zhenxiang Cheng, Xiaolin Wang, S X. Dou, Hideo Kimura, Kiyoshi Ozawa

Australian Institute for Innovative Materials - Papers

In this work, we report on our studies on the multiferroic properties of two rare earth chromates, GdCrO₃ and YCrO₃. Polycrystalline bulks and thin films have been fabricated using conventional solid state reaction and pulsed laser deposition. Magnetic measurements have revealed that both compounds show weak ferromagnetism below the antiferromagnetic Neel temperature, TN, of 170 and 140 K for GdCrO₃ and YCrO₃, respectively. However the well-developed ferroelectric polarization electrical field loop was not successfully measured for both samples due to their low resistance. The high conductivity of the samples at room temperature is related …