Review abstract


Nature Materials 6, 21 - 29 (2007)
doi:10.1038/nmat1805

Multiferroics: progress and prospects in thin films

R. Ramesh1 and Nicola A. Spaldin2


Multiferroic materials, which show simultaneous ferroelectric and magnetic ordering, exhibit unusual physical properties — and in turn promise new device applications — as a result of the coupling between their dual order parameters. We review recent progress in the growth, characterization and understanding of thin-film multiferroics. The availability of high-quality thin-film multiferroics makes it easier to tailor their properties through epitaxial strain, atomic-level engineering of chemistry and interfacial coupling, and is a prerequisite for their incorporation into practical devices. We discuss novel device paradigms based on magnetoelectric coupling, and outline the key scientific challenges in the field.

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  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
  2. Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA.

Correspondence to: R. Ramesh1 e-mail: rramesh@berkeley.edu

Correspondence to: Nicola A. Spaldin2 e-mail: nicola@mrl.ucsb.edu

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