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Nature Materials 7, 269 - 270 (2008)
doi:10.1038/nmat2143

Transition metal oxides: Multiferroics go high-TC

Maxim Mostovoy1

  1. Maxim Mostovoy is at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands.
    e-mail: M.Mostovoy@rug.nl


The discovery of magnetically induced electric polarization in cupric oxide at 230 K has uncovered a new class of multiferroics with significantly higher ordering temperatures.


The discovery by Tsuyoshi Kimura and colleagues of a multiferroic coupling in cupric oxide up to 230 K, as reported on page 291 of this issue1, is all the more remarkable as physicists had been wondering for a long time if it is possible at all to align electric dipoles by magnetic fields or change the direction of magnetization by applying voltage. To some, such a magnetoelectric coupling may seem to be an oddity, as static magnetic and electric dipoles do not interact.