The multi-ferroelectricity in neodymium ferrite with perovskite structure

In this paper, single-phase orthoferrite NdFeO3 crystals with the space group of Pbnm were successful prepared via mild hydrothermal method. The NdFeO3 crystal performs a weak antiferromagnetic behavior by magnetic measurement. The Dzyaloshinskii Moriya interaction in NdFeO3 crystal causes an additional canting of the antiferromagnetically ordered spins which induce the ferroelectricity. The saturation electric polarization result is 0.0163 μC/cm2 with coercive field of 6.68 kV/cm, and the Curie temperature is 430 K. So we present the direct experimental evidences that the NdFeO3 sample simultaneously exists the ferroelectricity and weak antiferromagnetic at room temperature. This work can develop a route to obtain more species of multiferroic compounds with perovskite structure.