Research Update: Electrical manipulation of magnetism through strain-mediated magnetoelectric coupling in multiferroic heterostructures

Abstract

Electrical manipulation of magnetism has been a long sought-after goal to realize energy-efficient spintronics. During the past decade, multiferroic materials combining (anti)ferromagnetic and ferroelectric properties are now drawing much attention and many reports have focused on magnetoelectric coupling effect through strain, charge, or exchange bias. This paper gives an overview of recent progress on electrical manipulation of magnetism through strain-mediated magnetoelectric coupling in multiferroic heterostructures.

Anisotropic domain switching in Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3‐0.30PbTiO3 single crystals with rhombohedral structure

“…Until recently, the PMN‐ x PT crystals have been increasingly utilized as critical components in strain‐mediated magnetoelectric coupling multiferroic devices, nonvolatile memories and field‐effect transistors . Therefore, a growing number of scientists gradually pay more attention to the ferroelectric characteristics of the PMN‐ x PT crystals …”

“…Recently, there has been considerable interest in ferroelectric properties, that is, polarization switching, in PMN‐ x PT single crystals for application in novel ferroelectric‐based devices . Under an alternative electric field, the domain switching via domain walls movement was confirmed in [001]‐poled PMN‐0.32PT crystals by in situ PLM .…”

“…2,3 Over the past decades, researches concerning high piezoelectric property near MPB have been in a privileged position, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] but much less attention is devoted to ferroelectric properties. Until recently, the PMN-xPT crystals have been increasingly utilized as critical components in strain-mediated magnetoelectric coupling multiferroic devices, 8,9 nonvolatile memories 10,11 and field-effect transistors. 12 Therefore, a growing number of scientists gradually pay more attention to the ferroelectric characteristics of the PMN-xPT crystals.…”

“…12 Therefore, a growing number of scientists gradually pay more attention to the ferroelectric characteristics of the PMN-xPT crystals. [8][9][10][11][12][13] An intrinsic feature of FE materials is that the spontaneous polarization vector (P S ) will be reversed by an applied electric (E) field. 14 Polarization reversal controlled by external E-field has been considered as the key scientific problems during the research.…”

Nanoscale imaging of magnetization reversal driven by spin-orbit torque

“…Magnetization can be manipulated with electric field via coupled order parameters in multiferroics [3-5], strain in piezoelectric/ferromagnetic heterostructures [6,7], spin-transfer torque in ferromagnet/nonferromagnet/ferromagnet devices [8], and spin-orbit torques in heavy metal/ferromagnet [9-12] and topological insulator/ferromagnet [13,14] bilayers. Spin-orbit torques have been characterized by a large number of transport and ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) techniques [9,13-25], but to date all magnetic microscopy studies of magnetization reversal driven by spin-orbit torques have used magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) microscopy [26-31], the resolution of which is diffraction-limited.…”