Biffo the fish: BiFeO3 nanoplate wins the Magnetism Art Competition at JEMS 2023 in Madrid
Dr. Tim Butcher from the Microspectroscopy group was recently awarded the first prize in the "Art in Magnetism" competition of the JEMS 2023 conference (https://www.jems2023.es/index.php/art-competition) with his contribution "Biffo", obtained from a soft X-ray ptychography image of a BiFeO3 multiferroic nanoplate.
Soft X-ray ptychography is a scanning microscopy technique that enables the imaging of nanoscale systems with a sub-10nm spatial resolution. Combined with a suitable contrast mechanism, such as circular or linear dichroism, magnetic textures can be visualised with high resolution. The stripes of Biffo, which are reminiscent of the stripes of a butterfly fish, are the antiferromagnetic cycloid in the multiferroic BiFeO3 nanoplate. These are also directly coupled with its ferroelectric domain structure.