A tunable self-bias effect in rubbery magnetoelectric materials

Abstract

Magnetoelectric (ME) composites have recently received extensive attention due to their much higher ME coefficients and relatively high operating temperatures compared to single-phase ME materials. However, the ME coefficients of ME composites depend on the external magnetic field, and high ME coefficients usually require the presence of a biased external DC magnetic field. In this work, we propose a hybrid magnetoactive elastomer, which is a rubber matrix embedded with both soft iron particles and hard NdFeB particles. It is found that such a hybrid MAE shows a nonzero piezomagnetic coefficient even as the applied magnetic field approaches zero. Based on this phenomenon, we further propose a soft ME material with a self-bias effect and experimentally demonstrate that the self-bias effect can be tailored by changing the residual magnetization of the hybrid MAE and the charge density of the electret layer. This work successfully demonstrates a new mechanism of the self-bias effect for magnetoelectric materials and introduces a new member to the family of ME materials.