Strain-driven magnetic domain wall dynamics controlled by voltage in multiferroic heterostructures

Abstract

Magnetic domain walls (DWs) have significants application potential as information carriers in the construction of novel high-density, high-speed spintronics devices. In this study, the fully coupled micro-magnetic-mechanical finite element method (FEM) was used to demonstrate the behaviour of DW dynamics under voltage-modulated magnetoelastic anisotropy via piezostrain transfer in ferromagnetic (FM)/piezoelectric (PE) multiferroic heterostructures. Continuous and long-distance high-speed DW-motion could be realized in the ferromagnetic layer by utilizing a voltage switching on the piezoelectric layer without applying magnetic fields or spin-polarization currents. Numerical simulations demonstrate that this system has low energy consumption of 1.215fJ for every shift operation and high speed with an average velocity of 234.4m/s when applying a 0.5volts under continuous and long-distance DW motion. This performance can be further improved by optimizing the structural design and material selection. The design and analysis results in this study provide a new and effective method to realize low-power consumption and high-speed spin logic devices based on magnetic DWs.