Abstract
The choice and configuration of the ferroelectric (FE) substrate and the ferromagnetic (FM) layer in FM/FE heterostructures play an important role in magnetism modification with regard to amplitude and efficiency. In this study, we fabricated FeSi films on low crystalline (011) [Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3]0.7-[PbTiO3]0.3 (PMN-0.32PT) using radio frequency magnetron sputtering. In the annealed FeSi/(011) PMN-0.32PT heterostructures, the FeSi film presented with a (011) preferred orientated polycrystalline structure and low magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Both loop-like and butterfly-like magnetism modifications were observed by applying bipolar electric fields, and the weak and abnormal electrically mediated magnetism behaviors were significantly different from the prominent magnetic anisotropy transition in FeSi/(011) PMN-0.3PT. The comparative analyses suggest that the resulting high-quality single-crystalline PMN-xPT and FM films with low coercivity are of great significance for exploring giant, reversible, and non-volatile magnetism regulation.
Highlights
Multiferroic materials with strong magnetoelectric (ME) couplings have attracted ever-increasing interest due to their potential application in ultra-sensitive sensors, microwave performance, and magnetic memory with ultralow energy consumption [1,2,3,4]
Most research activities have been focused on the converse ME coupling effect, i.e., electric field control of magnetism, with the aim of realizing giant, stable, reversible, and non-volatile magnetism regulation under the stimulation of electric fields [5,6,7,8]
For amorphous FM/FE heterostructures, the strain effect typically induces a uniaxial magnetoelastic energy in FM films, and the magnetic variation generally tracks the strain vs. electric-field (S–E) curves of the FE substrate [9,10,11,12]
Summary
Multiferroic materials with strong magnetoelectric (ME) couplings have attracted ever-increasing interest due to their potential application in ultra-sensitive sensors, microwave performance, and magnetic memory with ultralow energy consumption [1,2,3,4]. For (011)-oriented PMN-xPT, there is a strong loop-like S–E curve along the [01-1] direction under unipolar electric fields (asymmetric mediated between saturated and reversed coercive electric fields), which stems from the non-180◦ ferroelectric polarization switching between the out-of-plane and in-plane direction [8,21,22,23,24]. Compared with pure Fe films, the magnetocrystalline anisotropy field can be decreased by the addition of the non-magnetic element Si, it is easier to achieve the magnetization switching by electric field-induced piezoelectric strain. The initial magnetic properties and electrically modified magnetism behaviors for the FeSi/(011) PMN-0.32PT were significantly different from those of the previously reported FeSi/(011) PMN-0.3PT Both loop-like and butterfly-like magnetism modifications under bipolar electric fields were observed at room temperature. We illustrate the correlation of the selected PMN-xPT, FeSi film crystallinity and magnetism modification behaviors
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