NICKEL AND LEAD ZIRCONIUM TITANATE MULTI-LAYERED MAGNETOELECTRIC COMPOSITES PREPARED BY ELECTROLESS DEPOSITION

Abstract

Magnetoelectric (ME) nickel and lead zirconium titanate multi-layers with neither electrodes nor bonding layers was developed by electroless deposition. Scanning electron microscopy reveals that the Ni layer is in direct contact with the PZT layer without inter-layer not only in Ni /PZT/ Ni trilayer but also in Ni /PZT/ Ni /PZT/ Ni multi-layer. The in-plane parallel magnetostriction has been measured for electroless deposited Ni . The saturation magnetostriction is 32.6 × 10-6. When the total thickness of multi-layers is the same, the ME voltage coefficient α E,31 decreases with increasing the stacking periodicity. On condition that the thickness of each layer is the same, the ME voltage coefficient V E,31 of the Ni /PZT/ Ni /PZT/ Ni multi-layer is nearly twice higher than that of the Ni /PZT/ Ni tri-layer at the resonance frequency, which provides a new choice to obtain higher ME voltage coefficient.