We report the observation of spin-glass-like behavior and strong magnetic anisotropy in extremely smooth (~1-3 AA) roughness) epitaxial (110) and (010) SrRuO3 thin films. The easy axis of magnetization is always perpendicular to the plane of the film
(unidirectional) irrespective of crystallographic orientation. An attempt has been made to understand the nature and origin of spin-glass behavior, which fits well with Heisenberg model.
We show that epitaxial (001) thin films of multiferroic bismuth ferrite BiFeO3 are monoclinic at room temperature instead of tetragonal or Rhombohedral as reported earlier . We report a orthorhombic order-disorder beta-phase between 820C and 950C con
trary to the earlier report. The transition sequence monoclinic-orthorhombic phase in (001)BiFeO3 thin film (rhombohedral-orthorhombic transition in single crystal) resembles that of BaTiO3 or PbSc1/2Ta1/2O3. The transition to the cubic $gamma$-phase causes an abrupt collapse of the bandgap toward zero (insulator-metal transition) at the orthorhombic-cubic beta-gamma transition around 950C. This transition is similar to the metal-insulator transition in Ba0.6K0.4BiO3.
