Magnetic Structure and Ordering of Multiferroic Hexagonal LuFeO3

Abstract: We report on the magnetic structure and ordering of hexagonal LuFeO3 films grown by molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) on YSZ (111) and Al2O3 (0001) substrates. Using a set of complementary probes including neutron diffraction, we find that the system magnetically orders into a ferromagnetically-canted antiferromagnetic state via a single transition between 138-155 K, while a paraelectric to ferroelectric transition occurs above 1000 K. The symmetry of the magnetic structure in the ferroelectric state implies that this material is a strong candidate for linear magnetoelectric coupling and control of the ferromagnetic moment directly by an electric field.