Search

The paper deals with the hyperfine interactions observed on the 57Fe nucleus in multiferroic BiFeO3 by means of the 14.41-keV resonant transition in 57Fe, and for transmission geometry applied to the random powder sample. Spectra were obtained at 80 K, 190 K and at room temperature. It was found that iron occurs in the high spin trivalent state. Hyperfine magnetic field follows distribution due to the elliptic-like distortion of the magnetic cycloid. The long axis of the ellipse is oriented along <111> direction of the rhombohedral unit cell. The hyperfine magnetic field in this direction is about 1.013 of the field in the perpendicular direction at room temperature. This ratio diminishes to 1.010 at 80 K. Axially symmetric electric field gradient (EFG) on the iron atoms has the principal axis oriented in the same direction and the main component of the EFG is positive. Our results are consistent with the finding that iron magnetic moments are confined to the [1-21] crystal plane.

Ceramic samples, produced by conventional sintering method in ambient air, 6H-SrMnO$_3$(6H-SMO), 15R-BaMnO$_3$(15R-BMO), 4H-Ba$_{0.5}$Sr$_{0.5}$MnO$_3$(4H-BSMO) were studied. In the XRD measurements for SMO the new anomalies of the lattice parameters at 600-800 K range and the increasing of thermal expansion coefficients with a clear maximum in a vicinity at 670 K were detected. The N$\acute{e}$el phase transition for BSMO was observed at $T_N$=250 K in magnetic measurements and its trace was detected in dielectric, FTIR, DSC, and DMA experiments. The enthalpy and entropy changes of the phase transition for BSMO at $T_N$ were determined as 17.5 J/mol and 70 mJ/K mol, respectively. The activation energy values and relaxation times characteristic for relaxation processes were determined from the Arrhenius law. Results of ab initio simulations showed that the contribution of the exchange correlation energy to the total energy is about 30%., Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures

The ZFC and FC magnetization dependence on temperature was measured for BiFeO3 ceramics at the applied magnetic field up to H=10T in 2K-1000K range. The antiferromagnetic order was detected from the hysteresis loops below the Neel temperature TN=646K. In the low magnetic field range there is an anomaly in M(H), probably due to the field-induced transition from circular cycloid to the anharmonic cycloid. At high field limit we observe the field-induced transition to the homogeneous spin order. From the M(H) dependence we deduce that above the field Ha the spin cycloid becomes anharmonic which causes nonlinear magnetization, and above the field Hc the cycloid vanishes and the system again exhibits linear magnetization M(H). The anomalies in the electric properties, which are manifested within the 640K-680K range, coincide to the anomaly in the magnetization M(T) dependence, which occurs in the vicinity of TN. We propose to ascribe this coincidence to the critical behaviour of the chemical potential, related to the magnetic phase transition., Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures