Multiferroic materials, which offer the possibility of manipulating the magnetic state by an electric field or vice versa, are of great current interest. In this work, we demonstrate the first observation of electrical control of antiferromagnetic domain structure in a single-phase multiferroic material at room temperature. High-resolution images of both antiferromagnetic and ferroelectric domain structures of (001)-oriented multiferroic BiFeO3 films revealed a clear domain correlation, indicating a strong coupling between the two types of order. The ferroelectric structure was measured using piezo force microscopy, whereas X-ray photoemission electron microscopy as well as its temperature dependence was used to detect the antiferromagnetic configuration. Antiferromagnetic domain switching induced by ferroelectric polarization switching was observed, in agreement with theoretical predictions.

We demonstrated that ultraviolet Raman spectroscopy is an effective technique to measure the transition temperature ( T c ) in ferroelectric ultrathin films and superlattices. We showed that one-unit-cell-thick BaTiO 3 layers in BaTiO 3 /SrTiO 3 superlattices are not only ferroelectric (with T c as high as 250 kelvin) but also polarize the quantum paraelectric SrTiO 3 layers adjacent to them. T c was tuned by ∼500 kelvin by varying the thicknesses of the BaTiO 3 and SrTiO 3 layers, revealing the essential roles of electrical and mechanical boundary conditions for nanoscale ferroelectricity.

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) incorporating active piezoelectric layers offer integrated actuation, sensing, and transduction. The broad implementation of such active MEMS has long been constrained by the inability to integrate materials with giant piezoelectric response, such as Pb(Mg(1/3)Nb(2/3))O(3)-PbTiO(3) (PMN-PT). We synthesized high-quality PMN-PT epitaxial thin films on vicinal (001) Si wafers with the use of an epitaxial (001) SrTiO(3) template layer with superior piezoelectric coefficients (e(31,f) = -27 ± 3 coulombs per square meter) and figures of merit for piezoelectric energy-harvesting systems. We have incorporated these heterostructures into microcantilevers that are actuated with extremely low drive voltage due to thin-film piezoelectric properties that rival bulk PMN-PT single crystals. These epitaxial heterostructures exhibit very large electromechanical coupling for ultrasound medical imaging, microfluidic control, mechanical sensing, and energy harvesting.

We report a significant enhancement of the upper critical field H c2 of different MgB 2 samples alloyed with nonmagnetic impurities. By studying films and bulk polycrystals with different resistivities ρ, we show a clear trend of H c2 increase as ρ increases. One particular high resistivity film had zero-temperature H c2 (0) well above the H c2 values of competing non-cuprate superconductors such as Nb 3 Sn and Nb-Ti. Our high-field transport measurements give record values H c2 ⊥ (0) ≈ 34T and H c2 || (0) ≈ 49 T for high resistivity films and H c2 (0) ≈ 29 T for untextured bulk polycrystals. The highest H c2 film also exhibits a significant upward curvature of H c2 (T), and temperature dependence of the anisotropy parameter γ(T) = H c2 || / H c2⊥ opposite to that of single crystals: γ(T) decreases as the temperature decreases, from γ(T c ) ≈ 2 to γ(0) ≈ 1.5. This remarkable H c2 enhancement and its anomalous temperature dependence are a consequence of the two-gap superconductivity in MgB 2 , which offers special opportunities for further H c2 increase by tuning of the impurity scattering by selective alloying on Mg and B sites. Our experimental results can be explained by a theory of two-gap superconductivity in the dirty limit. The very high values of H c2 (T) observed suggest that MgB 2 can be made into a versatile, competitive high-field superconductor.

We have grown epitaxial BiFeO 3 thin films with smooth surfaces on ͑001͒, ͑101͒, and ͑111͒ SrTiO 3 substrates using sputtering. Four-circle x-ray diffraction and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy show that the BiFeO 3 thin films have rhombohedral symmetry although small monoclinic distortions have not been ruled out. Stripe ferroelectric domains oriented perpendicular to the substrate miscut direction and free of impurity phase are observed in BiFeO 3 on high miscut ͑4°͒ ͑001͒ SrTiO 3 , which attributes to a relatively high value of remanent polarization ͑ϳ71 C/cm 2 ͒. Films grown on low miscut ͑0.8°͒ SrTiO 3 have a small amount of impure phase ␣-Fe 2 O 3 which contributes to lower the polarization values ͑ϳ63 C/cm 2 ͒. The BiFeO 3 films grown on ͑101͒ and ͑111͒ SrTiO 3 exhibited remanent polarizations of 86 and 98 C/cm 2 , respectively.