High-throughput growth of SmxPr1-xFeO3 all-in-one single crystal rod with quasi-continuous composition distribution

SmxPr1-xFeO3 (x = 0, 0.4, 0.7, 0.9, 1.0) all-in-one single crystal rod with quasi-continuous composition distribution was successfully grown by a hetero-seed and hetero-feed optical floating zone technique in flowing air. The lattice mismatch between each adjacent composition is very small, leading to the high-quality continuous growth of SmxPr1-xFeO3 single crystal rod. X-ray back-reflection Laue photographs indicate that all single crystals at different positions along the growth direction have good crystallization quality and the same crystallographic axis. The composition change of the quasi-continuous single crystals along growth direction was analyzed by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), which shows that the composition varies continuously and smoothly near the different composition boundaries. At a distance relatively far away from the boundary, the composition remains constant. Finally, we measured the anisotropic magnetic properties of these single crystals when x = 0.7. Our study shows that the hetero-seed and hetero-feed optical floating zone technique has a great potential for high-throughput growth of crystalline materials, and could serve as an effective method to collect single crystal material properties in materials database research.