Abstract:Rare-earth orthoferrites RFeO3 materials have recently attracted a great attention for their intriguing technolgical potential. Among these materials, SmFeO3 holds great promise not only for the excellent physical properties (fast magnetic switching, spin reorientation and magnetization reversal) but also for its potential ferroelectric properties which have been recently under debate. Here we focus our attention on T-dependent Zero Field Cooled (ZFC) and Field Cooled (FC) magnetization properties of micrometer scale crystals of SmFeO3 obtained by annealing methods.We report the observation of an enhanced magnetic transition at the temperature of approximately 139 K. From literature bulk susceptibility measurements, is has been suggested that below the temperature of about 140 K, Sm 3+ moments begin to order antiparallel to the Fe-moments due to antiferromagnetic f-d exchange interactions. We attribute the observed transition to compensation effects induced by the appearance of long range ordering in Sm 3+ spins. The magnetic-nature of the observed transition is confirmed by additional temperature dependent XRD analysis which did not show structural changes of the samples in the same temperature range (from 298 K to 100 K). Due to residual small fractions of ferromagnetic -Fe from the sample-growth, possible interactions between the magnetic moment of -Fe and the SmFeO3 crystals at the compensation temperature can not be excluded and could be at the origin of the enhanced magnetic signal reported in this work.
IntroductionRare-earth orthoferrites RFeO3 (R= rare-earth ion) materials have recently attracted a great attention for their intriguing physical properties, ideal for numerous technological applications, such as ultrafast photo-magnetic recording [1-4], inertia-driven spin switching [5], laser-induced ultrafast spin reorientation [6][7], magnetic biasing on P-E hysteresis loops [8], enhanced magnetoelectric interactions [9,10], multiferroics, ferroelectrics [11][12][13][14][15]. The family of RMO3 materials is generally characterized by a distorted perovskite Pbnm structure which exhibits a weak ferromagnetic behavior due to a small canting of the antiferromagnetic metal sub-lattices (M