Magnetic ground state in the ferroelectric LuFeO

Kakurai, Kazuhisa; Matsuda, Masaaki; Yoshii, Kenji  ; Ikeda, Naoshi*; Kito, Hijiri*; Yamada, Yasusada*

Recently the investigation of multiferroic systems showing strong correlation between the magnetic and ferroelectric ordering is attracting much attention. The temperature variation of the electric polarization in LuFeO indicates such a strong correlation. The magnetic ordering process of this ferrimagnetic system is complex showing a frozen spin ground state in zero field. We have investigated the field dependence of the magnetic ordering process and discovered that the frozen state is suppressed upon application of the magnetic field in the stacking c-axis direction of this layered compound and that a ground state with much larger correlation in c-axis direction is established.