Defect driven ferroelectricity and magnetism in nanocrystalline KTaO3

Nominally pure nanocrystalline KTaO3 was thoroughly investigated by micro-Raman and magnetic resonance spectroscopic techniques. In all samples the defect driven ferroelectricity and magnetism are registered. Both ordering states are suggested to appear due to the iron atoms and oxygen vacancies. The concentration of defects was estimated to be 0.04 and 0.06-0.1 mol%. Note that undoped single crystals of KTaO3 are nonmagnetic and have never exhibited ferromagnetic properties. The results enable us to refer a nanosized KTaO3 to the class of multiferroics and assume that it could perform the magnetoelectric effect at T < 29 K. It was also established that the critical concentration of impurity defects necessary to provoke the appearance of the new phase states in the material strongly correlates with the size of the particle; as the size of the particle decreases, the critical concentration decreases as well. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.