An ab initio effective Hamiltonian is developed and used to reveal the effect of misfit strain on magnetic properties of epitaxial (001) films made of a prototypical rare earth iron garnet: Gadolinium iron garnet. It is found that both the magnetization compensation temperature (T-M) and the Curie temperature (T-C) can be significantly and linearly enhanced when varying the strain from tensile to compressive values. Consequently, T-M can be designed to coincide with room temperature, and the magnitude of the magnetization can be optimized at around 300 K when choosing the appropriate substrate. The microscopic origins of these technologically promising effects are further revealed.
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