Exploring the Magnetoelectric Coupling at the Composite Interfaces of FE/FM/FE Heterostructures

Dhiren K Pradhan; Shalini Kumari; Rama K Vasudevan; Evgheni Strelcov; Venkata S Puli; Dillip K Pradhan; Ashok Kumar; J Marty Gregg; A K Pradhan; Sergei V Kalinin; Ram S Katiyar

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-35648-1

Exploring the Magnetoelectric Coupling at the Composite Interfaces of FE/FM/FE Heterostructures

Sci Rep. 2018 Nov 26;8(1):17381. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-35648-1.

Authors

Dhiren K Pradhan^{1

2}, Shalini Kumari^{3

4}, Rama K Vasudevan^{5

6}, Evgheni Strelcov⁷, Venkata S Puli⁸, Dillip K Pradhan⁹, Ashok Kumar¹⁰, J Marty Gregg¹¹, A K Pradhan¹², Sergei V Kalinin^{5

6}, Ram S Katiyar¹³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Institute of Functional Nanomaterials, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, 00936, PR, USA. dhirenkumarp@gmail.com.
² Extreme Materials Initiative, Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, DC, 20015, USA. dhirenkumarp@gmail.com.
³ Department of Physics and Institute of Functional Nanomaterials, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, 00936, PR, USA.
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, 26506, USA.
⁵ Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 37831, USA.
⁶ Institute for Functional Imaging of Materials, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 37831, USA.
⁷ Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 207425, USA.
⁸ Smart Nanomaterials Solutions, Orlando, FL, 32707, USA.
⁹ Department of Physics & Astronomy, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, 769008, India.
¹⁰ National Physical Laboratory (CSIR), New Delhi, 110012, India.
¹¹ Centre for Nanostructured Media, School of Maths and Physics, Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland, UK.
¹² Center for Materials Research, Norfolk State University, 700 Park Avenue, Norfolk, Virginia, 23504, USA.
¹³ Department of Physics and Institute of Functional Nanomaterials, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, 00936, PR, USA. rkatiyar@hpcf.upr.edu.

Abstract

Multiferroic materials have attracted considerable attention as possible candidates for a wide variety of future microelectronic and memory devices, although robust magnetoelectric (ME) coupling between electric and magnetic orders at room temperature still remains difficult to achieve. In order to obtain robust ME coupling at room temperature, we studied the Pb(Fe_0.5Nb_0.5)O₃/Ni_0.65Zn_0.35Fe₂O₄/Pb(Fe_0.5Nb_0.5)O₃ (PFN/NZFO/PFN) trilayer structure as a representative FE/FM/FE system. We report the ferroelectric, magnetic and ME properties of PFN/NZFO/PFN trilayer nanoscale heterostructure having dimensions 70/20/70 nm, at room temperature. The presence of only (00l) reflection of PFN and NZFO in the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns and electron diffraction patterns in Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) confirm the epitaxial growth of multilayer heterostructure. The distribution of the ferroelectric loop area in a wide area has been studied, suggesting that spatial variability of ferroelectric switching behavior is low, and film growth is of high quality. The ferroelectric and magnetic phase transitions of these heterostructures have been found at ~575 K and ~650 K, respectively which are well above room temperature. These nanostructures exhibit low loss tangent, large saturation polarization (P_s ~ 38 µC/cm²) and magnetization (M_s ~ 48 emu/cm³) with strong ME coupling at room temperature revealing them as potential candidates for nanoscale multifunctional and spintronics device applications.