Novel multiferroicity in orthorhombic SmCrO₃

This paper reports the ferroelectricity in antiferromagnetic SmCrO₃ with a reasonably large value of spontaneous electric polarization (70 μC/cm² mC cm⁻² at 50 K) based on the measurement of pyroelectric current. The experimental results showed that the temperature of the onset of polar order was evidently higher (about 220 K) than the Neel temperature (T_N =197 K) in the magnetodielectric studies. The calculated magnetodielectric effect (MDE) value was explicitly negative with maximum | MDE | values of about 3.6% around 230 K. The absence of a convincing signature in MDE at antiferromagnetic ordering temperature T_N indicated the absence of magnetoelectric coupling around this temperature regime. The results further confirmed that the onset of polar order can be attributed to the structural distortion, rather than the canted noncollinear magnetic structure.