Ferromagnetism and increased ionicity in epitaxially grown TbMnO3 films

Thin films of TbMnO3 have been grown on SrTiO3 substrates. The films grow under compressive strain and are only partially clamped to the substrate. This produces remarkable changes in the magnetic properties and, unlike the bulk material, the films display ferromagnetic interactions below the ordering temperature of similar to 40 K. X-ray photoemission measurements in the films show that the Mn 3s splitting is 0.3 eV larger than that of the bulk. Ab initio embedded-cluster calculations yield Mn 3s splittings that are in agreement with the experiment and reveal that the larger observed values are due to a larger ionicity of the films.