Searching for a New Multiferroic Nitride

Multiferroics exhibit coexisting ferroelectric and ferromagnetic orderings; when these orders are coupled in magnetoelectrics, they are promising for low-power electronics. To date, much of the focus on the discovery of new multiferroics has been limited to oxides. Despite a wealth of applications in optoelectronics, the nitride compositional space is currently underexplored for multiferroics. New nitride multiferroics are sought-after for their stability and improved compatibility with other nitride semiconductor components. In this talk, we discuss our search for a new multiferroic nitride using material informatics and ab initio calculations. After a comprehensive search for known ferroelectric nitrides, we use density functional theory to calculate the structural, magnetic, and electronic properties of these candidate ferroelectrics with the inclusion of magnetic ions. We evaluate the resulting magnetic and ferroelectric orderings in the most promising candidates and discuss their feasibility for room temperature operation in new nitride-based devices.