Surface effect on the magnetoelectric response of magnetoelectric layered composite with nanoscale thickness

Abstract

A theoretical model is proposed to study the ME effect in the layered ME composite with nanoscale thickness, which taking into account the surface effect. The layered ME composites nano structure is treated as a bulk core plus two surface layers with zero thickness. The influence on the structure overall properties resulted from the surface effect is modeled by a spring force exerting on the boundary of the bulk core. Using the derived equations, the so-called effective Miller-Shenoy coefficient, static and electromechanical resonance (EMR) properties of the nanoscale thickness ME composite for the extensional-bending coupling deformations are analyzed theoretically. At the same time, the effect of the substrate on ME effect is theoretically studied by altering the thickness ratio of the substrate. Numerical results shows the effective properties and the static and EMR properties of the composites are size-dependent, and surface effect have non-ignored effects on the ME effect. Besides, the EMR frequency in nano-thickness composites are expected to occur at very low frequencies compared to nominal dimensional composites. The EMR frequency shows an increase with increasing substrate thickness, and predicts a maximum in the EMR ME coefficient at small but nonvanishing substrate thickness.