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Direct visualization of magnetoelectric domains

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 163–167 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The coupling between the magnetic and electric dipoles in multiferroic and magnetoelectric materials holds promise for conceptually novel electronic devices1,2,3. This calls for the development of local probes of the magnetoelectric response, which is strongly affected by defects in magnetic and ferroelectric ground states. For example, multiferroic hexagonal rare earth manganites exhibit a dense network of boundaries between six degenerate states of their crystal lattice, which are locked to both ferroelectric and magnetic domain walls. Here we present the application of a magnetoelectric force microscopy technique that combines magnetic force microscopy with in situ modulating high electric fields. This method allows us to image the magnetoelectric response of the domain patterns in hexagonal manganites directly. We find that this response changes sign at each structural domain wall, a result that is corroborated by symmetry analysis and phenomenological modelling4, and provides compelling evidence for a lattice-mediated magnetoelectric coupling. The direct visualization of magnetoelectric domains at mesoscopic scales opens up explorations of emergent phenomena in multifunctional materials with multiple coupled orders.

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Figure 1: Schematic of MeFM set-up.
Figure 2: MeFM results of h-ErMnO3.
Figure 3: MeFM images and the H-dependence of the MeFM signal.
Figure 4: T–H phase diagram and a cartoon of critical fluctuation in the A2′ phase.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Vanderbilt, K. Rabe, S. Artyukhin, P. Chandra and P. Coleman for helpful discussions. Research at Rutgers was supported by the US DOE-BES under Award # DE-SC0008147 (PFM and MeFM studies), and by the NSF under award # DMR-1104484 (synthesis and characterization). Y.G. and W.W. were partially supported by the NSF under award # DMR-0844807. A.L.W. was supported by the Cornell Center for Materials Research with funding from NSF MRSEC program, cooperative agreement DMR-1120296. H.D. and C.J.F. was supported by the DOE-BES under Award Number DE-SCOO02334. M.M. was supported by FOM grant 11PR2928 and the Niels Bohr International Academy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy and Rutgers Center for Emergent Materials, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA

    Yanan Geng, Xueyun Wang, S-W. Cheong & Weida Wu

  2. School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 14853, USA

    Hena Das, Aleksander L. Wysocki & Craig J. Fennie

  3. Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, Groningen, 9747 AG, The Netherlands

    M. Mostovoy

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  1. Yanan Geng
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Contributions

W.W. conceived and designed the project. S-W.C. and X.W. grew and annealed h-ErMnO3 crystals and characterized the magnetic properties. Y.G. carried out PFM and MeFM measurements and analysed the data. A.L.W., H.D. and C.J.F. performed first-principles calculations and developed a phenomenological theory of the linear magnetoelectric effect. M.M. performed the phenomenological Landau theory symmetry analysis of the linear magnetoelectric and the anomalous magnetoelectric response. Y.G., C.J.F., M.M. and W.W. wrote the manuscript with input from all authors. Y.G., A.L.W., M.M. and W.W. wrote the Supplementary Information. All authors participated in discussions.

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Correspondence to Weida Wu.

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Geng, Y., Das, H., Wysocki, A. et al. Direct visualization of magnetoelectric domains. Nature Mater 13, 163–167 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3813

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