Magneto-electric multiferroics have attracted a huge interest over the last decade, both experimentally and theoretically. First-principles calculations did not only contribute to the fundamental understanding of prototypical systems but also revealed as a powerful tool to propose and explore new pathways to achieve strong coupling between the electric and magnetic properties. This Review aims at highlighting key advances in the field of magneto-electric multiferroics, to which first-principles methods have contributed significantly.

Novel magneto-electric multiferroics from first-principles calculations. J. Varignon, N. C. Bristowe, E. Bousquet and Ph. Ghosez, C. R. Physique 16, 153 (2015)


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A domain wall in ferroïc compounds is not necessarily a passive region that accommodates the different ferroic-order orientations of the domains that border it. Working on TbMnO3, Farokhipoor et al. recently highlighted that it can also be a reactive area that generates and stabilizes new two-dimensional crystallographic phases never observed in bulk materials and not achievable by conventional means. In a News & Views advertising that work, Ph. Ghosez and J.-M. Triscone clarify that their findings is related to a trilinear coupling of lattice modes and should be a generic feature of certain ferroelastic domain walls in Pnma perovskites. 

Ph. Ghosez and J.-M. Triscone, Nature 515, 348-350 (2014).

Farokhipoor, S. et al. Nature 515, 379-383 (2014).

The recent years have seen the discovery of various exotic phenomena at complex oxide interfaces, which are expected to revolutionize various technological applications in electronics, spintronics and data-storage. Combined with their unique (multi-)functional properties, complex oxide heterostructures display some of the most chemically abrupt, atomically precise interfaces, which is advantageous when constructing new interface phases with emergent properties by juxtaposing incompatible ground states. One might assume that atomically precise interfaces result from stoichiometric growth. In a publication appearing in Nature Communications, we show that the most precise control is obtained utilizing deliberate and specific non-stoichiometric growth conditions. For the precise growth of Srn+1TinO3n+1 Ruddlesden-Popper (RP) phases, stoichiometric deposition leads to the loss of the first RP rock-salt double layer, but growing with a strontium-rich surface layer restores the bulk stoichiometry and ordering of the subsurface RP structure. These results dramatically expand the materials that can be prepared in epitaxial heterostructures with precise interface control – from just the n = 1 end members (perovskites) to the entire RP homologous series - enabling the exploration of novel quantum phenomena at a richer variety of oxide interfaces. (Figure : courtesy of Y. F. Nie)