Polarised neutron diffraction study of the spin cycloid in strained nanoscale bismuth ferrite thin films

Abstract
Polarised neutron scattering is capable of separating magnetic structure from chemical structure. Here we report an experiment using the newly available capability at ANSTO, namely polarised neutron diffraction using polarised 3He neutron spin-filters to obtain the detail magnetic structure in even highly complex magnetic materials. Magnonic devices that utilize electric control of spin waves mediated by complex spin textures are an emerging direction in spintronics research. Room-temperature multiferroic materials, such as BiFeO3, with a spin cycloidal structure would be ideal candidates for this purpose. In order to realise magnonic devices, a robust long-range spin cycloid with well-known direction is desired. Despite extensive investigation, the stabilization of a large scale uniform spin cycloid in nanoscale (100 nm) thin BiFeO3 films has not been accomplished. The polarized neutron diffraction experiment did confirm the existence of the spin cycloid in this BiFeO3 film, which is an important prerequisite for the multiferroic coupling.
Description
Keywords
Beams, Coherent scattering, Diffraction, Even-odd nuclei, Ferrimagnetic materials, Films, Helium isotopes, Iron compounds, Isotopes, Light nuclei, Magnetic materials, Magnetism, Materials, Nuclei, Oxygen compounds, Particles, Physical properties, Scattering, Stable isotopes, Transition element compounds
Citation
Lee, W. T., Bertinshaw, J., Maran, R., Callori, S. J., Ramesh, V., Cheung, J., Danilkin, S. A., Hu, S., Seidel, J., Valanoor, N., & Ulrich, C. (2017). Polarised neutron diffraction study of the spin cycloid in strained nanoscale bismuth ferrite thin films. Poster presented to the 41st Annual Condensed Matter and Materials Meeting, 31st January - 3rd February 2017 Charles Sturt University Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia, (pp.78). Retrieved from: https://physics.org.au/wp-content/uploads/cmm/2017/Wagga_2017_Conference_Handbook.pdf