Magnetoelectric and Multiferroic Properties of BaTiO3/NiFe2O4/BaTiO3 Heterostructured Thin Films Grown by Pulsed Laser Deposition Technique

Venkata Sreenivas Puli,Gollapudi Sreenivasulu,Ram S Katiyar,Dhiren Kumar Pradhan,Kalpana Madgula,Douglas B Chrisey,Simhachalam Narendra Babu,Nandiraju Venkata Prasad

doi:10.3390/cryst11101192

Abstract

Development of lead-free BaTiO3/NiFe2O4/BaTiO3 (BTO/NFO/BTO) trilayer structure thin films is significant for the realization of eco-friendly and implantable microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based devices. In the present work, we report BTO/NFO/BTO trilayer structure as a representative ferroelectric/ferromagnetic/ferroelectric (FE/FM/FE) system deposited on Pt(111)/TiO2/SiO2/Si using Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique. We report the ferroelectric, magnetic, and ME properties of BTO/NFO/BTO trilayer nanoscale heterostructure having dimensions 140/80/140 nm, at room temperature. High room temperature dielectric constant ~2145 at 100 Hz with low dielectric loss ~0.05 at 1 MHz is observed. Further, the deposited (BTO/NFO/BTO) tri-layered thin films showed magnetoelectric, multiferroic behavior with remanent polarization of 8.63 μCcm−2 at about 0.25 MV/cm and a reasonably high saturation magnetization of ~16 emu/cm3 at ~10 kOe is witnessed at room temperature. Tri-layered films have shown interesting magnetoelectric (ME) coupling coefficient (αE) ~54.5 mV/cm Oe at room temperature.

Highlights

IntroductionMultiferroics (MFs) are those single-phase materials which show the coexistence of at least two or more ferroic ordering, i.e., (ferroelectric (or antiferroelectricity), ferromagnetic (or antiferromagnetism), ferroelastic and ferrotoroidic) at the same temperature and pressure
Multiferroics (MFs) are those single-phase materials which show the coexistence of at least two or more ferroic ordering, i.e., (ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, ferroelastic and ferrotoroidic) at the same temperature and pressure
We report preparation of multiferroic and magnetoelectric trilayer structure thin films BaTiO3/NiFe2O4/BaTiO3 (BTO/NFO/BTO) grown on Pt(111)/TiO2/ SiO2/Si single-crystal substrate using Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique

Summary

Introduction

Multiferroics (MFs) are those single-phase materials which show the coexistence of at least two or more ferroic ordering, i.e., (ferroelectric (or antiferroelectricity), ferromagnetic (or antiferromagnetism), ferroelastic and ferrotoroidic) at the same temperature and pressure. Due to the coexistence of ferroic ordered parameters that lead to cross coupling between ferroic orders, one ferroic property can be controlled and switched with the conjugate field of the other. Due to their unusual physical properties, MFs materials with magnetoelectric coupling properties have drawn considerable research attention to be utilized in multifunctional devices [2,3]. ME effect in MFs is observed when the switching of spontaneous magnetization (Ms) by an external electric field and spontaneous polarization (Ps) by an external magnetic field In either case, these materials exhibit spontaneous deformation, which can be switched or re-oriented by applied stress (σ). The coupling of these materials can be efficiently used in multifunctional device applications, such as switching devices, novel memory media [low-energy spintronic and magnonic devices], actuators, magnetic sensors and transducers, microwave devices, etc. [2,3,4,5,6]

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