The TMO targets were produced by solid state synthesis from Tb4O7 and MnO2 powders with high purity (99.99 %). The primary materials were heated at 800 °C for 8 h and subsequently sintered at 1200 °C for 12 h in air atmosphere. TMO thin films were grown on (001)-oriented, single-crystal STO substrates using dc sputtering technique. The growth took place at 750 °C under an oxygen pressure of 3 millibars and a power of 150 mW. After deposition, the chamber was flooded with oxygen under an pressure of 1000 millibars, and then kept there for 1 h before cooling down to room temperature. The structure of the film was studied by X-ray diffraction using a Panalytical X’Pert Pro diffractometer (Cu-K radiation) in standard &ñ61553;–2&ñ61553; configuration. The magnetic properties of the TMO films were measured using a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer. For the zero-field-cooled (ZFC) magnetization measurements, the sample was cooled down from 300 K to low temperature without the magnetic field. The ZFC magnetization versus temperature (M-T) curves were measured during the warming process. Isothermal M-H curves were recorded at various temperatures in fields as strong as 3 T. Isothermal M-H curves were recorded at various temperatures for fields up to 1T. The XRD pattern of the TMO target along with the Rietveld refinement is plotted in Fig. 1(a). The results of the Rietveld refinement confirm the formation of a single-phase material with orthorhombic distorted symmetry and Pbnm space group. The lattice parameters ended up being a=5.298(9) Å, b=5.823(3) Å, and c=7.409(4) Å at room temperature and are in good agreement with those found in the literature for polycrystalline samples7. The refinement parameters obtained were Rwp=2.27 % and &ñ61539;2=2.64 suggesting that the structural model correctly represents the experimental results. Figure 1(b) shows the XRD patterns of a TMO film grown on an (100)-STO substrate recorded in grazing incidence configuration in order to avoid the superposition with the peaks stemming from the substrate. Only one peak is observed which could be indexed as TMO (220). The intensity of the (110) peak of TbMnO3, appearing at 2&ñ61553;=22.67° was very low and hence hardly detectable. No peaks identifiable as originating from additional phases are observed in this plot. The appearance of only (hh0) reflections confirms that the as-deposited films are single phase and grown with the (hh0) planes parallel to the sample surface. It is widely known that while in bulk materials the lattice distortions can be varied by applying hydrostatic or chemical pressure, for thin epitaxial ABO3 perovskite films a substrate- induced biaxial stress is an effective tool to modify the electron-lattice coupling. For heteroepitaxial film growth on single crystal substrates, lattice mismatch is the critical parameter which influences the resultant film lattice distortion and strain. The lattice mismatch is defined as m=(a0-as)/as, where a0 and as are the unstrained layer and substrate in-plane lattice parameters, respectively8. In the present study, TMO thin films were deposited on (001)-oriented SrTiO3 substrates. (001)-oriented SrTiO3 is preferred in studies of epitaxy in perovskites because it can be obtained with atomically flat surfaces, favoring high quality growth. The STO substrate is a cubic perovskite with lattice constant of a=3.905 Å. The highly distorted perovskite TMO crystallizes in an orthorhombic structure (space group: Pbnm) with lattice constants of a0=5.309 Å, b0=5.812 Å, c0=7.386 Å, (a02+b02)1/2=7.4025 Å7. At this point, it should be mentioned that, lattice parameters reported for the bulk/single-crystal TMO system, particularly the c-lattice parameter, vary considerably.