Room temperature ferromagnetic 2D honeycomb-kagome lattice in Cr₂O₃ single crystal

We have grown a plate like bulk crystal of Cr₂O₃, using modified decomposition method. Further, we confirmed as grown plate like single-crystal (∼3mm) using X-ray diffraction shows preferred orientation peaks along crystallographic c-axis as shown in the article and inset shows crushed single-crystal powder X-ray diffraction which confirmed: trigonal crystal symmetry as R -3 c (-167) and strained lattice due to shift in 29 position at higher angle, also from our detailed Le-Bail and Rietveld refinement analysis renders significant decrease in unit-cell parameters as a = 4.939 [4.9607] (3); b = 4.939 [4.960] (3); and c = 13.524269 (8) clearly shows lattice parameter are compared. We have also performed lab source Raman and synchrotron source IR spectroscopy which reveals both kinds of modes are present in the spectra as shown in the article. Further, we found pronounced signatures of strained lattice as the shift in the Raman modes at higher frequency in comparison with the standard bulk Raman data. We observed both indicating simultaneous broken space inversion as well as time reversible symmetry state. XAS data confirms +3 oxidation state of Cr ion. In addition, we first time report room temperature FM ordering (T_c ≈ 303 K) in Cr₂O₃ by using magnetization data over as grown single-crystal, can possibly modified due to the change in the Cr-Cr interaction on the honeycomb-kagome magnetic lattice as recently theoretically predicted for the modified reduced dimension in Cr₂O₃