Epitaxial stabilization of artificial hexagonal GdMnO3 thin films and their magnetic properties

The authors investigated the role of oxygen partial pressure on the epitaxial growth of an artificial hexagonal GdMnO3 phase, which should exist in an orthorhombic structure in bulk. The hexagonal GdMnO3 film showed diverse, but obvious, magnetic phase transitions with highly enhanced ferromagnetic properties. Its remnant magnetization at 4.2K is higher than those of other hexagonal RMnO3 (R=Ho, Er, and Yb) compounds, and the Curie temperature increases by around 25K. The results demonstrate that the epitaxial stabilization technique is a promising method for fabricating an artificial material with enhanced magnetic properties.