Interfacial strain effects in epitaxial multiferroic heterostructures of PbZrxTi1-xO3/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 grown by pulsed-laser deposition

Ferroelectric PbZrxTi1-xO3 and ferromagnetic La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films were grown on SrTiO3(100) substrates in order to fabricate multiferroic epitaxial heterostructures. Multilayers of PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 with 5 nm thin individual layers preserve good magnetic properties and have a transition temperature of similar to 320 K. The variation of the magnetic coercive field of thin La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 films, sandwiched between PbZrxTi1-xO3 films of increasing Zr content in the same epitaxial heterostructure, demonstrates the influence of the interfacial biaxial strain. (c) 2008 American Institute of Physics.