a possible multiferroic candidate, an annealing study*

Over the last few years, manganese oxides have experienced a considerable increase in research interests due to their rich and complex phase diagrams, resulting from the flexibility of the manganese ions oxidations states. Ca-Mn-O is an excellent example, whose rich phase diagram also contains phases that have been theoretically predicted to be multiferroic. While many of the phases have been well investigated, CaMn₂O₄ to date is still not well understood and a hopeful candidate.
Polycrystalline samples were synthesized and annealed with two different growth environments to investigate the effect of oxygen deficiencies further. Therefore, argon as well as oxygen gas flows were utilized. Magnetization, heat capacity measurements, as well as dielectric and loss measurements will be discussed.