Multiferroicity and magnetoelectric coupling in polycrystalline Y-doped EuMnO3

The effects of Y-doping on the magnetic, dielectric and ferroelectric properties of EuMnO3 were carefully investigated through a series of polycrystalline Eu1 − xYxMnO3 (x = 0, 0.15, 0.25, 0.3 and 0.5) samples prepared by solid state reaction. The Y-doping reduces the A-site ionic size and then the Mn–O–Mn bond angle. It is postulated that upon the doping, the magnetic ground state firstly changes to a conical spin order at x = 0.15 and then a spiral spin order for higher doping. The ferroelectric transitions appear at the conical and spiral spin order transition points ∼ 25 K, and a polarization ∼ 90 μC/m2 is achieved in sample with x = 0.25.