We have explored the high-pressure structural, vibrational, electronic, and magnetic behavior of the multiferroic CoCr 2 O 4 spinel up to 30 GPa by means of x-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and density functional theory calculations. Our investigations revealed a reversible tetragonal distortion of the starting cubic structure above 16 GPa. We suggest that the structural modification is mainly driven by magnetic effects induced under pressure. The obtained results are compared with the high-pressure behavior of related spinels.

The series of Cr-chalcogenide spinels ACr 2 X 4 (A = Zn, Cd, Hg; X = S, Se) exhibits a rich phase diagram upon compression, as revealed by our recent investigations. There exist, however, some open questions regarding the role of cations in the observed structural transitions. In order to address these queries, we have performed X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopic studies on the ZnCr 2 S 4 spinel up to 42 GPa, chosen mainly due to the similarity of the Zn 2+ and Cr

Multiferroic composites of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric phases are of importance for studies on mechanical strain mediated coupling between the magnetic and electric subsystems. This work is on DNA-assisted self-assembly of superstructures of such composites with nanometer periodicity. The synthesis involved oligomeric DNA-functionalized ferroelectric and ferromagnetic nanoparticles, 600 nm BaTiO3 (BTO) and 200 nm NiFe2O4 (NFO), respectively. Mixing BTO and NFO particles, possessing complementary DNA sequences, resulted in the formation of ordered core-shell heteronanocomposites held together by DNA hybridization. The composites were imaged by scanning electron microscopy and scanning microwave microscopy. The presence of heteroassemblies along with core-shell architecture is clearly observed. The reversible nature of the DNA hybridization allows for restructuring the composites into mm-long linear chains and 2D-arrays in the presence of a static magnetic field and ring-like structures in a rotating-magnetic field. Strong magneto-electric (ME) coupling in as-assembled composites is evident from static magnetic field H induced polarization and low-frequency magnetoelectric voltage coefficient measurements. Upon annealing the nanocomposites at high temperatures, evidence for the formation of bulk composites with excellent cross-coupling between the electric and magnetic subsystems is obtained by H-induced polarization and low-frequency ME voltage coefficient. The ME coupling strength in the self-assembled composites is measured to be much stronger than in bulk composites with randomly distributed NFO and BTO prepared by direct mixing and sintering.