Electric field control of magnetization allows further miniaturization of integrated circuits for binary bit processing and data storage as it eliminates the need for bulky sophisticated systems to induce magnetic fields. Magnetoelectric coupling inherent to the bulk of multiferroic films or control of spin orientation in magnetic layers via piezoelectric strain in dual component composites have been two approaches standing out. Another magnetoelectric effect is spin-dependent screening that occurs at dielectric/ferromagnet interfaces which is of great importance for spin selective tunnel junctions. Here, we analyze the spin-dependent screening of ferroelectric polarization in a film interfacing ferromagnetic electrodes using the continuity equations in continuum media. The competition between the electrostatic and the magnetochemical potential in the FM electrodes gives rise to a reduction in the net magnetic moment near the interface due to spin mixing, extending to a distance comparable to the Thomas-Fermi screening length. Our continuum media treatment shows that the local spin population in spin subbands near the interfaces can dramatically deviate from bulk, which is in qualitative agreement with recent first principles results. We compute the tunneling currents for the majority and minority spins using the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation as a function of ferroelectric polarization. We find that the spin polarization tends to disappear for increasing values of ferroelectric polarization in direct connection with the increase in subband spin population for minority spins at the interface.

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The interest in patterned polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) surfaces has grown significantly in the recent years due to ability to control the ferroelectric behavior through the size and shape of the surface structures. However, forming micron sized structures on the PVDF surface generally requires laborious lithography based methods or use of templates which complicates the process. In this study, we report spontaneous formation of microislands with ferroelectric response during PVDF growth via initiated chemical vapor deposition. Depositions performed under continuous and no flow conditions show that laminar precursor flow to the surface yield homogenous thin films, whereas no flow conditions of the batch mode result in the growth of surface protrusions (microislands) with higher polar phase content. Formation of these surface instabilities after an incubation time indicates the presence of local stress fields building with time, resulting in formation of the islands with higher β phase fraction to release the stress. Furthermore, the increased mobility of the polymer chains at high temperatures reduces the stress field, leading to lower β/α phase ratios in smaller microislands.

The present work evaluates the effects of plasma power and oxygen mixing ratios (OMRs) on structural, morphological, optical, and electrical properties of strontium titanate SrTiOx (STO) thin films. STO thin films were grown by magnetron sputtering, and later thermal annealing at 700°C for 1 h was applied to improve film properties. X‐ray diffraction analysis indicated that as‐deposited films have amorphous microstructure independent of deposition conditions. The films deposited at higher OMR values and later annealed also showed amorphous structure while the films deposited at lower OMR value and annealed have nanocrystallinity. In addition, all as‐deposited films were highly transparent (~80%–85%) in the visible spectrum and exhibited well‐defined main absorption edge, while the annealing improved transparency (90%) within the same spectrum. The calculated direct and indirect optical band gaps for films were in the range of 3.60‐4.30 eV as a function of deposition conditions. The refractive index of the films increased with OMRs and the postdeposition annealing. The frequency dependent capacitance measurements at 100 kHz were performed to obtain film dielectric constant values. High dielectric constant values reaching up to 100 were obtained. All STO samples exhibited more than 2.5 μC/cm2 charge storage capacity and low dielectric loss (less than 0.07 at 100 kHz). The leakage current density was relatively low (3 × 10−8Acm−2 at +0.8 V) indicating that STO films are promising for future dynamic random access memory applications.