Ferroicity and multiferroicity
Ferroic materials are those that exhibit a spontaneous ordering of their electric, magnetic or structural properties. The best-known example of ferroicity is ferromagnetism, in which the magnetic moments of a material all point in one direction, but other types of ferroic ordering are possible. In ferroelectricity, for example, it is the electric polarization that spontaneously orders itself, while ferroelastic materials display spontaneous strain.
Multiferroicity occurs when several properties of a material have their own individual preferred states. For example, a magnetic multiferroic material might have magnetic moments that point in one direction, and electric charge that also shifts in a certain direction. Importantly, the two phenomena are independent of each other.
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