Article abstract
Nature Materials 7, 478 - 482 (2008)
Published online: 27 April 2008 | doi:10.1038/nmat2184
Subject Categories: Electronic materials | Magnetic materials | Surface and thin films
Electric-field control of local ferromagnetism using a magnetoelectric multiferroic
Ying-Hao Chu1,2,3,1, Lane W. Martin1,3,1, Mikel B. Holcomb2,3, Martin Gajek2, Shu-Jen Han4, Qing He2, Nina Balke2, Chan-Ho Yang2, Donkoun Lee4, Wei Hu4, Qian Zhan1,2, Pei-Ling Yang1,2, Arantxa Fraile-Rodríguez5, Andreas Scholl6, Shan X. Wang4 & R. Ramesh1,2,3
Abstract
Multiferroics are of interest for memory and logic device applications, as the coupling between ferroelectric and magnetic properties enables the dynamic interaction between these order parameters. Here, we report an approach to control and switch local ferromagnetism with an electric field using multiferroics. We use two types of electromagnetic coupling phenomenon that are manifested in heterostructures consisting of a ferromagnet in intimate contact with the multiferroic BiFeO3. The first is an internal, magnetoelectric coupling between antiferromagnetism and ferroelectricity in the BiFeO3 film that leads to electric-field control of the antiferromagnetic order. The second is based on exchange interactions at the interface between a ferromagnet (Co0.9Fe0.1) and the antiferromagnet. We have discovered a one-to-one mapping of the ferroelectric and ferromagnetic domains, mediated by the colinear coupling between the magnetization in the ferromagnet and the projection of the antiferromagnetic order in the multiferroic. Our preliminary experiments reveal the possibility to locally control ferromagnetism with an electric field.
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
- Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
- Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California 94305, USA
- Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen PSI, CH-5232, Switzerland
- Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
- These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence to: Lane W. Martin1,3,1 e-mail: lwmartin@berkeley.edu
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