Magnetoelectric coupling tailored by the orientation of the nanocrystals in only one component in percolative multiferroic composites

Yu Tang; Ruixin Wang; Yi Zhang; Bin Xiao; Shun Li; Piyi Du

doi:10.1039/c9ra03291f

Magnetoelectric coupling tailored by the orientation of the nanocrystals in only one component in percolative multiferroic composites

RSC Adv. 2019 Jul 1;9(35):20345-20355. doi: 10.1039/c9ra03291f. eCollection 2019 Jun 25.

Authors

Yu Tang^{1

2}, Ruixin Wang¹, Yi Zhang³, Bin Xiao⁴, Shun Li¹, Piyi Du²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Aerospace Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology Changsha 410073 China.
² State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University Hangzhou 310027 China dupy@zju.edu.cn.
³ Department of Physics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, National University of Defense Technology Changsha 410073 China zhangyi1983@zju.edu.cn.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen Engineering Research Center for Novel Electronic Information Materials and Devices, Southern University of Science and Technology Shenzhen 518055 China.

Abstract

Novel 1-3 type multiferroic composite thin films were prepared via a simple 0-3 composite fabrication process. The orientation of the Ni_0.5Zn_0.5Fe₂O₄ (NZFO) nanocrystals in the BaTiO₃-Ni_0.5Zn_0.5Fe₂O₄ (BTO-NZFO) composite thin films was controlled by magnetron sputtering, and the controlling effect of such orientation on magnetoelectric coupling was investigated in detail. The NZFO lattice in the BTO-NZFO composite thin films grew with (100) orientation under the induction of the (111) plane of Si. The transfer of substrate stress between the closely contacted grains also contributes to the orientation of the NZFO nanocrystals. The 0.6BTO-0.4(100)NZFO multiferroic composite thin film exhibited a magnetization strength of 9.2% at the Curie point of the BTO phase, showing extremely strong magnetoelectric coupling characteristics. This work provides an effective strategy for the development of high-performance multiferroic composites, and brings about new conception of realizing strong magnetoelectric coupling effect from the perspective of physical chemistry.