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Here we report a giant, completely reversible magneto-electric coupling of 100 nm polycrystalline Co layer in contact with ZnO nanorods. When the sample is under an applied bias of ±2 V, the Co magnetic coercivity is reduced by a factor 5 from the un-poled case, with additionally a reduction of total magnetic moment in Co. Taking into account the chemical properties of ZnO nanorods measured by X-rays absorption near edge spectroscopy under bias, we conclude that these macroscopic effects on the magnetic response of the Co layer are due to the microstructure and the strong strain-driven magneto-electric coupling induced by the ZnO nanorods, whose nanostructuration maximizes the piezoelectric response under bias.

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The evolution of the aggregation of condensed matter from single atoms to three-dimensional structures represents an important topic in nanoscience, since it contains essential information to achieve tailor-made growth of...

The possibility of depositing precisely mass-selected Ag clusters (Ag 1 , Ag 3 , and Ag 7 ) on Ru(0001) was instrumental in determining the importance of the in-plane coordination number (CN) and allowed us to establish a linear dependence of the Ag 3d 5/2 core-level shift on CN. The fast cluster surface diffusion at room temperature, caused by the low interaction between silver and ruthenium, leads to the formation of islands with a low degree of ordering, as evidenced by the high density of low-coordinated atomic configurations, in particular CN = 4 and 5. On the contrary, islands formed upon Ag 7 deposition show a higher density of atoms with CN = 6, thus indicating the formation of islands with a close-packed atomic arrangement. This combined experimental and theoretical approach, when applied to clusters of different elements, offers the perspective to reveal nonequivalent local configurations in two-dimensional (2D) materials grown using different building blocks, with potential implications in understanding electronic and reactivity properties at the atomic level.