A complete strain–temperature phase diagram for BiFeO3films on SrTiO3and LaAlO3(0 0 1) substrates

BiFeO 3 has a complex phase diagram as function of both strain and temperature, undergoing a morphotropic phase transformation under large compressive strain. Epitaxial films, grown by pulsed laser deposition, are ideal for the study of the intricate phase coexistence between multiple polymporphs. Three polymorphs have been identified in the literature. They are carefully described in this paper (labelled R', T', and S'). As both ferroelectric and magnetic properties are typically strongly linked to structural distortions, the structural, ferroelectric and magnetic transition temperatures are expected to differ between the R', T' and S' polymorphs. In this paper we present a complete strain–temperature phase diagram for each of the polymorphs.