Magneto-ferroelectric interaction in superlattices: Monte Carlo study of phase transitions

Abstract

We study in this paper the phase transition in superlattices formed by alternate magnetic and ferroelectric layers, by the use of Monte Carlo simulation. We study effects of temperature, external magnetic and electric fields, magnetoelectric coupling at the interfaceon the phase transition. Magnetic layers in this work are modeled as thin films of simple cubic lattice with Heisenbergspins. Electrical polarizations of $\pm{1}$ are assigned at simple cubic lattice sites in the ferroelectric layers. The transition temperature, the layer magnetizations, the layer polarizations, the susceptibility, the internal energy, the interface magnetization and polarization are calculated.The layer magnetizations and polarizations as functions of temperature are shown for various coupling interactions and field values.Mean-field theory is also presented and compared to MC results.