Electric-Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect in a Hybrid Organic-Inorganic Perovskite

Hybrid organic–inorganic compounds attract a lot of interest for their flexible structures and multifunctional properties. For example, they can have coexisting magnetism and ferroelectricity whose possible coupling gives rise to magnetoelectricity. Here using first-principles computations, we show that, in a perovskite metal–organic framework (MOF), the magnetic and electric orders are further coupled to optical excitations, leading to an Electric tuning of the Magneto-Optical Kerr effect (EMOKE). Moreover, the Kerr angle can be switched by reversal of both ferroelectric and magnetic polarization only. The interplay between the Kerr angle and the organic–inorganic components of MOFs offers surprising unprecedented tools for engineering MOKE in complex compounds. Note that this work may be relevant to acentric magnetic systems in general, e.g., multiferroics.