Search

• Room temperature multiferroicity is obtained in CoFe 1.6 Al 0.4 O 4 thin films. • The films exhibit well defined ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties. • Atomic orderings and structural deformation might induce the ferroelectric order. Here a single-phase multiferroic spinel CoFe 1.6 Al 0.4 O 4 is presented which exhibits ferrimagnetic and ferroelectric properties at room temperature. The CoFe 1.6 Al 0.4 O 4 films exhibit spinel structure with Fd 3 - m space group. The study of the magnetic behaviors prove the ferrimagnetic nature of the compound. The CoFe 1.6 Al 0.4 O 4 films exhibit typical ferroelectric hysteresis with remnant polarization of 1.0 μC/cm2 and significant piezoresponse displacement at room temperature, which suggest that the ferroelectric order is presented in the spinel films. The ferroelectric order in the CoFe 1.6 Al 0.4 O 4 spinel likely originates from the possible atomic orderings in cationic sublattices and local deformation induced by the substitution of Al ions at the sublattices of CoFe 2 O 4. Our result provides contributions to the development of single phase multiferroics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]