A new multiferroic heterostructure of YMnO3/SnTiO3+x

In order to find high-performance multiferroic materials, which are good candidates for lead-free piezoelectric/ferroelectric films, a new type of heterostructural thin film of YMnO3/SnTiO3+x (YST) was designed and produced. SnTiO3 is a metastable but promising lead-free ferroelectric material. Our expectation was that it could be stabilized by alternating YMnO3 layers. Here we report the fabrication and ferroelectric, piezoelectric and magnetic properties of YST films. Antiferromagnetic and ferroelectric properties were observed to coexist on the YST film with four layers, fabricated using the pulsed laser deposition method on (1 1 0) Nb:SrTiO3 substrates. Although some basic ferroelectric properties of the SnTiO3 films have previously been reported, further study is needed to obtain high-performance SnTiO3 films.