Giant self-biased converse magnetoelectric effect in multiferroic heterostructure with single-phase magnetostrictive materials

Abstract

Giant self-biased converse magnetoelectric (CME) effects with obvious hysteretic behaviors are systematically investigated in two-phase SmFe2/PZT [Pb(Zr1−x, Tix)O3] multiferroic laminates at room temperature. Taking advantage of the huge anisotropic field of SmFe2 plate, large remnant CME coupling is provoked by this field instead of permanent magnets to bias the laminate. Consequently, bitable magnetization status switching is realized through a smaller ac voltage far below the electric coercive field in the absence of magnetic bias field. Experiments demonstrate that a large remnant CME coefficient (αCME) of 0.007 mG/V is achieved, exhibiting ∼50 times higher CME coefficient than the previous laminate composite multi-phase magnetostrictive plates. These results provide promising applications for realization of high-density magnetoelectric random access memories (MERAMs) devices with lower energy consumption.