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The hexagonal rare earth ferrites h -RFeO 3 (R = rare earth element) have been recognized as promising candidates for a room-temperature multiferroic system, and the primary issue for these materials is how to get a stable hexagonal structure since the centrosymmetric orthorhombic structure is generally stable for most RFeO 3 at room-temperature, while the hexagonal phase is only stable under some strict conditions. In the present work, h -Lu 1- x In x FeO 3 ( x = 0-1) thin films were prepared on a Nb-SrTiO 3 (111) single-crystal substrate by a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process, and the multiferroic characterization was performed at room temperature. With the combined effects of chemical pressure and epitaxial strain, the stable hexagonal structure was achieved in a wide composition range ( x = 0.5-0.7), and the results of XRD (X-ray diffraction) and SAED (selected area electron diffraction) indicate the super-cell match relations between the h -Lu 0.3 In 0.7 FeO 3 thin film and substrate. The saturated P - E hysteresis loop was obtained at room temperature with a remanent polarization of about 4.3 μC/cm 2 , and polarization switching was also confirmed by PFM measurement. Furthermore, a strong magnetoelectric coupling with a linear magnetoelectric coefficient of 1.9 V/cm Oe was determined, which was about three orders of magnitude larger than that of h -RFeO 3 ceramics. The present results indicate that the h -Lu 1- x In x FeO 3 thin films are expected to have great application potential for magnetoelectric memory and detection devices.

Thin films of 0.85BiFe 1-2x Ti x Mg x O 3 -0.15CaTiO 3 (x = 0.1 and 0.2, abbreviated to C-1 and C-2, respectively) have been fabricated on (001) SrTiO 3 substrate with and without a conductive La 0.7 Sr 0.3 MnO 3 buffer layer. The X-ray θ-2θ and ϕ scans, atomic force microscopy, and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy confirm the (001) epitaxial nature of the thin films with very high growth quality. Both the C-1 and C-2 thin films show well-shaped magnetization-magnetic field hysteresis at room temperature, with enhanced switchable magnetization values of 145.3 and 42.5 emu/cm 3 , respectively. The polarization-electric loops and piezoresponse force microscopy measurements confirm the room-temperature ferroelectric nature of both films. However, the C-1 films illustrate a relatively weak ferroelectric behavior and the poled states are easy to relax, whereas the C-2 films show a relatively better ferroelectric behavior with stable poled states. More interestingly, the room-temperature thermal conductivity of C-1 and C-2 films are measured to be 1.10 and 0.77 W/(m·K), respectively. These self-consistent multiferroic properties and thermal conductivities are discussed by considering the composition-dependent content and migration of Fe-induced electrons and/or charged point defects. This study not only provides multifunctional materials with excellent room-temperature magnetic, ferroelectric, and thermal conductivity properties but may also stimulate further work to develop BiFeO 3 -based materials with unusual multifunctional properties.

A parallel solution combustion synthesis technique was developed for combinatorial materials studies. The vigorous combustion reactions were successfully limited in the microreactors by using a substrate-net-mask microreactor system and the lowest adoptable furnace temperature. Using this technique, a luminescent materials library of Y3Al5O12/Tb(chi) was synthesized with the aid of an ink-jet delivery system. Structure and luminescence characterizations were implemented using X-ray diffraction and UV/X-ray spectroscopies, respectively. The results show that this technique is reliable and applicable to combinatorial study of powder materials with high synthesis temperature.