Reversed exchange-bias effect associated with magnetization reversal in the weak ferrimagnet LuFe0.5Cr0.5O3

The exchange-bias (EB) effect with sign reversal was found in $\mathrm{LuF}{\mathrm{e}}_{0.5}\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{r}}_{0.5}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ ferrite-chromite, which is a weak ferrimagnet below ${T}_{\mathrm{N}}=265\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$, exhibiting antiparallel orientation of the ferromagnetic (FM) moments of the Fe and Cr sublattices due to opposite sign of the Fe-Cr Dzyaloshinskii vector, as compared to that of the Fe-Fe and Cr-Cr. The weak FM moments of the studied compound compensate each other at temperature ${T}_{\mathrm{comp}}=230\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{K}$, leading to the net magnetic moment reversal and to observed negative magnetization, at moderate applied fields, below ${T}_{\mathrm{comp}}$. Both vertical and horizontal shifts from the origin were gotten in the field-cooled magnetization hysteresis loops. The EB sign was found to be positive below ${T}_{\mathrm{comp}}$ and negative above ${T}_{\mathrm{comp}}$, with nonmonotonic dependence on cooling field ${H}_{\mathrm{cool}}$. It sharply increases at small values of magnetic fields up to ${H}_{\mathrm{cool}}\ensuremath{\sim}1\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\mathrm{kOe}$, then remains almost unchanged in the range 1--30 kOe and strongly decreases with further increase of ${H}_{\mathrm{cool}}$. This unusual behavior results from the competition of various Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions between $\mathrm{F}{\mathrm{e}}^{3+}$ and $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{r}}^{3+}$ ions.