Preparation of epitaxial DyFeO3 thin films and magnetodielectric coupling

Multiferroic DyFeO3 thin films deposited on (001) Nb-doped SrTiO3 (NSTO) substrates are prepared by pulsed laser deposition. We demonstrate the epitaxial deposition of DyFeO3 thin films on the substrates with the DyFeO3(001)//NSTO(001) out-of-plane and DyFeO3[100]//NSTO[110] in-plane epitaxial relationship. In addition, the weak ferromagnetism and significant magnetodielectric coupling effect at low temperature are revealed. It is indicated that the DyFeO3 thin films have very different properties from the DyFeO3 single crystals in term of multiferroicity. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.