Electric-Field-Enhanced Bulk Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy in GdFe/Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)0.7Ti0.3O3 Multiferroic Heterostructure

Aitian Chen; Senfu Zhang; Yan Wen; Haoliang Huang; Jürgen Kosel; Yalin Lu; Xi-Xiang Zhang

doi:10.1021/acsami.9b16904

Electric-Field-Enhanced Bulk Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy in GdFe/Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)_0.7Ti_0.3O₃ Multiferroic Heterostructure

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2019 Dec 18;11(50):47091-47097. doi: 10.1021/acsami.9b16904. Epub 2019 Dec 3.

Authors

Aitian Chen, Senfu Zhang, Yan Wen, Haoliang Huang¹, Jürgen Kosel, Yalin Lu¹, Xi-Xiang Zhang

Affiliation

¹ Anhui Laboratory of Advanced Photon Science and Technology, National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory , University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei 230026 , China.

PMID: 31736291
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b16904

Abstract

Perpendicular magnetic anisotropy is important for increasing the information storage density in the perpendicular magnetic recording media, and for rare-earth-transition-metal alloys with bulk perpendicular magnetic anisotropy that generate great research interest due to their abundant interesting phenomena, such as fast domain wall motion and skyrmion. Here, we deposit amorphous GdFe ferrimagnetic films on Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)_0.7Ti_0.3O₃ ferroelectric substrate and investigate the effect of electric-field-induced piezostrain on its bulk perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. The anomalous Hall effect and polar Kerr image measurements suggest an enhanced bulk perpendicular magnetic anisotropy by electric field, which originates from a positive magnetoelastic anisotropy due to the positive magnetostriction coefficient of the GdFe film and the electric-field-induced tensile strain along the z axis in Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)_0.7Ti_0.3O₃ ferroelectric substrate. Our results enrich the electrical control of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and are useful for designing spintronic devices based on perpendicular magnetic anisotropy.

Keywords: bulk perpendicular magnetic anisotropy; electric-field control of magnetism; ferrimagnetic; ferroelectric; multiferroic heterostructure; rare-earth−transition-metal alloys.