Effects of strain and ordering of rare-earth element moments on magnetic-reordering in orthorhombic multiferroic manganites

Orthorhombic multiferroic manganite thin films with various orientations and strain states were prepared to show the effects of anisotropic strain and antiferromagnetic (AFM) ordering of rare-earth f-electrons on the orientation of the incommensurate-to-commensurate AFM reordering. Systematic analyses suggest that the low-temperature AFM ordering of the rare-earth f-electrons may have played a decisive role in causing the orientation changes in AFM reordering, although the b-axis strain does have a significant influence on the zero-field magnetization behaviors.