Metamagnetic behaviour and effect of field cooling on sharp magnetization jumps in multiferroic Y₂CoMnO₆

¹ Cryogenic Engineering Centre, Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur-721302, India
² Department of Physics and Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, National Sun Yat-Sen University Kaohsiung 804, Taiwan
³ Institute of Physics, National Chiao Tung University - Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan

Received: 14 August 2014
Accepted: 12 October 2014

Abstract

We present sharp magnetization jumps and field-induced irreversibility in magnetization in multiferroic . The appearance of magnetic relaxation and field sweep rate dependence of magnetization jumps resembles the martensite-like scenario and suggests the coexistence of E*-type antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic phases at low temperatures. In , the critical field required for the sharp jump can be increased or decreased depending on the magnitude and direction of the cooling field; this is remarkably different from manganites or other metamagnetic materials where the critical field increases irrespective of the direction of the applied field cooling. The cooling field dependence on the sharp magnetization jumps has been described by considering exchange pinning mechanism at the interface, like in the exchange bias model.