| Summary: | According to previous theoretical work, the binary oxide CuO can become a room temperature
multiferroic via tuning of the superexchange interactions by application of pressure. Thus far, however, there has been no experimental evidence for the predicted room-temperature multiferroicity.
Here, we show by neutron diffraction that the multiferroic phase in CuO reaches 295 K with the
application of 18.5 GPa pressure. We also develop a spin Hamiltonian based on density functional
theory and employing superexchange theory for the magnetic interactions, which can reproduce
the experimental results. The present study provides a stimulus to develop room-temperature
multiferroic materials by alternative methods based on existing low temperature compounds, such
as epitaxial strain, for tunable multifunctional devices and memory applications.
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