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Low-field magnetoelectric effect at room temperature

Nature Materials volume 9, pages 797–802 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

The discoveries of gigantic ferroelectric polarization in BiFeO3 (ref. 1) and ferroelectricity accompanied by a magnetic order in TbMnO3 (ref. 2) have renewed interest in research on magnetoelectric multiferroics3,4, materials in which magnetic and ferroelectric orders coexist, from both fundamental and technological points of view5,6,7. Among several different types of magnetoelectric multiferroic8,9, magnetically induced ferroelectrics in which ferroelectricity is induced by complex magnetic orders, such as spiral orders, exhibit giant magnetoelectric effects, remarkable changes in electric polarization in response to a magnetic field. Many magnetically induced ferroelectrics showing the magnetoelectric effects have been found in the past several years10. From a practical point of view, however, their magnetoelectric effects are useless because they operate only far below room temperature (for example, 28 K in TbMnO3 (ref. 2) and 230 K in CuO (ref. 11)). Furthermore, in most of them, the operating magnetic field is an order of tesla that is too high for practical applications. Here we report materials, Z-type hexaferrites, overcoming these problems on magnetically induced ferroelectrics. The best magnetoelectric properties were obtained for Sr3Co2Fe24O41 ceramics sintered in oxygen, which exhibit a low-field magnetoelectric effect at room temperature. Our result represents an important step towards practical device applications using the magnetoelectric effects.

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Figure 1: Schematic crystal structures of hexaferrites.
Figure 2: Characterizations of Sr3Co2Fe24O41 polycrystalline ceramics sintered in air and in oxygen.
Figure 3: Magnetic and magnetoelectric properties of Sr3Co2Fe24O41 polycrystalline ceramics sintered in oxygen.
Figure 4: Room-temperature magnetoelectric effect of Sr3Co2Fe24O41 polycrystalline ceramics sintered in oxygen.

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Acknowledgements

We thank T. Takeuchi for his help in magnetization measurements, and T. Asaka and Y. Wakabayashi for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by KAKENHI (Grant Nos 20674005, 20001004 and 19052001) and Global COE Program (Program No. G10), MEXT, Japan.

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  1. Yutaro Kitagawa

    Present address: Present address: Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Materials Physics, Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531, Japan

    Yutaro Kitagawa, Yuji Hiraoka, Takashi Honda, Taishi Ishikura, Hiroyuki Nakamura & Tsuyoshi Kimura

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  1. Yutaro Kitagawa
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Contributions

Y.K., Y.H. and T.K. initiated this work. Y.K. carried out sample preparation and characterization as well as magnetic, electric and magnetoelectric measurements, with assistance from Y.H. and H.N.; T.I. and H.N. also carried out all of the above experiments to confirm the reproducibility of the results. T.H. analysed the X-ray diffraction data and clarified the impurity phases. T.K. designed and directed the research, and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Tsuyoshi Kimura.

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Kitagawa, Y., Hiraoka, Y., Honda, T. et al. Low-field magnetoelectric effect at room temperature. Nature Mater 9, 797–802 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2826

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