Magnetic microscopy and simulation of strain-mediated control of magnetization in Ni/PMN-PT nanostructures

Strain-mediated thin film multiferroics comprising piezoelectric/ferromagnetic heterostructures enable the electrical manipulation of magnetization with much greater efficiency than other methods; however, the investigation of nanostructures fabricated from these materials is limited. Here we charac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2016-10
Main Authors: Gilbert, Ian, Chavez, Andres C, Pierce, Daniel T, Unguris, John, Wei-Yang, Sun, Cheng-Yen, Liang, Carman, Gregory P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Elastodynamics
Electric fields
Ferroelectric materials
Ferroelectricity
Ferromagnetic materials
Heterostructures
Magnetization
Microscopy
Nanostructure
Piezoelectricity
Scanning electron microscopy
Simulation
Substrates
Thin films
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Summary:Strain-mediated thin film multiferroics comprising piezoelectric/ferromagnetic heterostructures enable the electrical manipulation of magnetization with much greater efficiency than other methods; however, the investigation of nanostructures fabricated from these materials is limited. Here we characterize ferromagnetic Ni nanostructures grown on a ferroelectric PMN-PT substrate using scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis (SEMPA) and micromagnetic simulations. The magnetization of the Ni nanostructures can be controlled with a combination of sample geometry and applied electric field, which strains the ferroelectric substrate and changes the magnetization via magnetoelastic coupling. We evaluate two types of simulations of ferromagnetic nanostructures on strained ferroelectric substrates: conventional micromagnetic simulations including a simple uniaxial strain, and coupled micromagnetic-elastodynamic simulations. Both simulations qualitatively capture the response of the magnetization changes produced by the applied strain, with the coupled solution providing more accurate representation.
ISSN:2331-8422