Comparison of structure and multiferroic performances of bilayer and trilayer multiferroic heterostructures

Abstract

This paper reports on the comparison of structure and multiferroic performances for Ba0.85Ca0.15Zr0.1Ti0.9O3/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (BCZT/LSMO) bilayer and BCZT/LSMO/BCZT trilayer multiferroic heterostructures. The epitaxial growth and the strain states of the multiferroic heterostructures are confirmed by the XRD RSM, which demonstrates that both the BCZT layer and LSMO layer in the trilayer heterostructure suffer larger residual strain than the bilayer one. The room temperature multiferroic nature of the multiferroic heterostructures is proved by the simultaneous observed ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties as well as the magnetoelectric effect, which shows strong dependence of the residual strain. As compared with the trilayer heterostructure, the bilayer heterostructure shows better electrical and ferromagnetic properties as well as the ME effect. The largest piezoelectric coefficient of 40.5 p.m./V, the highest remnant polarization of 23.3 μC/cm2 and the biggest ferromagnetic Curie temperature of 316.7 K are obtained in the bilayer heterostructure because of the smaller residual strain. And the bilayer heterostructure also shows the strongest magnetoelectric effect with the αE31 value of 215.5 mV/cm·Oe.