Temperature induced phase transition from cycloidal to collinear antiferromagnetism in multiferroic Bi₀.₉Sm₀.₁FeO₃ driven by f-d induced magnetic anisotropy

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In multiferroic BiFeO₃ a cycloidal antiferromagnetic structure is coupled to a large electric polarization at room temperature, giving rise to magnetoelectric functionality that may be exploited in novel multiferroic-based devices. In this paper, we demonstrate that by substituting samarium for 10% of the bismuth ions the periodicity of the room temperature cycloid is increased, and by cooling below 15 K the magnetic structure tends towards a simple G-type antiferromagnet, which is fully established at 1.5 K. We show that this transition results from f-d exchange coupling, which induces a local anisotropy on the iron magnetic moments that destroys the cycloidal order - a result of general significance regarding the stability of non-collinear magnetic structures in the presence of multiple magnetic sublattices.