Room temperature magnetoelectric multiferroic thin films offer great promises for the spintronics industry. The actual development of devices, however, requires the production of ultrathin atomically smooth films of high crystalline quality in order to increase spin transfer efficiency. Using both high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and atomically resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy, we unveil the complex growth mechanism of a promising candidate, gallium ferrite. This material, with its net room-temperature magnetization of approximately 100 emu/cm 3 , is an interesting challenger to the antiferromagnetic bismuth ferrite. We obtained atomically flat gallium ferrite ultrathin films with a thickness control down to one fourth of a unit cell. Films with thicknesses as low as 7 nm are polar and show a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy of 3 × 10 3 J/m 3 at 300 K, which makes them particularly attractive for spin current transmission in spintronic devices, such as spin Hall effect based heavy-metal / ferrimagnetic oxide heterostructures.

20]). One then expects the orbital magnetic moment 329 to follow this rotation. This means that, since μ L is largely 330 controlled by the anisotropic displacements of the Fe 3+ ions 331 within the distorted FeO 6 octahedra at Fe1 and Fe2 sites, 332 the Fe 3+ off-centering should go mainly along the c axis 333 foreseeing a complete reorientation of the distortions within 334 the GFO crystal structure. Without considering the energy 335 scale associated with this process, if this happens, the sign 336 between μ L and μ S would not change, since we will meet the 337 same situation as introduced and explained for GI geometry 338 [Fig. 4(a)], with no possibility to distinguish among the b 339 and c axes anymore. On the contrary, if we consider that the 340 Fe 3+ ion displacements have a large component along the b 341 axis, which implies that μ L at each Fe1 and Fe2 site only 342 slightly rotates, as sketched in Fig. 4(b) by the green shaded 343 arrows, the net μ L along H is now oriented antiparallel to μ S 344 as, indeed, expected from our XMCD results in NI geometry 345 [Fig. 3(c)].

The current family of experimentally realized two-dimensional magnetic materials, based on 3d transition metal ions, possesses weak spin–orbit coupling. In contrast, we report a novel platform in a chemically bonded and layered oxide SrRu2O6. In bulk, this system is known for strong electron correlations and competing spin–orbit coupling. We present the synthesis and characterization of ultrathin nanosheets of SrRu2O6 along with first-principles calculations to explore their magnetic state. SrRu2O6 nanosheets are synthesized using a scalable technique of liquid exfoliation. Atomic force microscopy reveals that the thickness of the nanosheets varies between three and five monolayers. Experimental data also suggest that exfoliation occurs from the planes perpendicular to the c-axis wherein the intervening hexagonal Sr lattice separates the two-dimensional Ru honeycomb. The high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images indicate that the average interatomic spacing between the Ru layers is slightly reduced, which agrees with the density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The signatures of rotational stacking of the nanosheets are also observed. Within the first-principles calculations, we show that antiferromagnetism survives in these nanosheets. The experimental realization of graphene-like two-dimensional (2D) sheets of SrRu2O6 offers enormous possibilities to explore emergent properties associated with a magnetic honeycomb with large spin–orbit coupling, and this system is likely to have applications in the area of antiferromagnetic spintronics.

The low power manipulation of magnetization is currently a highly sought-after objective in spintronics. Non ferromagnetic large spin-orbit coupling heavy metal (NM) / ferromagnet (FM) heterostructures offer interesting elements of response to this issue, by granting the manipulation of the FM magnetization by the NM spin Hall effect (SHE) generated spin current. Additional functionalities, such as the electric field control of the spin current generation, can be offered using multifunctional ferromagnets. We have studied the spin current transfer processes between Pt and the multifunctional magnetoelectric Ga0.6Fe1.4O3 (GFO). In particular, via angular dependent magnetotransport measurements, we were able to differentiate between magnetic proximity effect (MPE)-induced anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) and spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR). Our analysis shows that SMR is the dominant phenomenon at all temperatures and is the only one to be considered near room temperature, with a magnitude comparable to those observed in Pd/YIG or Pt/YIG heterostructures. These results indicate that magnetoelectric GFO thin films show promises for achieving an electric-field control of the spin current generation in NM/FM oxide-based heterostructures.