Structure of Ferroic Iron Formates at Low Temperature and High Pressure

What is it about?

Protonated amine-templated metal formates exhibit a rich chemical diversity and quite some interesting physical properties (ferroelectricity, ferroelasticity, multiferroicity, magnetism). To find out if the hydrogen bonding interaction between the protonated amine cation and the MO6 coordination plays a crucial role (which is believed), the local Fe2+ coordination environments have been investigated, applying Mössbauer spectroscopy at non-ambient conditions of ammonium iron formate, [NH4][Fe(HCOO)3], and dimethylammonium iron formate, [(CH3)2NH2][Fe(HCOO)3].

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Why is it important?

The present research provides on the one hand new insight into multiferroic properties of [(CH3)2NH2][Fe(HCOO)3] and raises on the other hand the important question whether a static disorder arrangement is important for giving rise to the magnetoelectric coupling, which is absent in the related [(CH3)2NH2][Mn(HCOO)3] compound.