No Arabic abstract
Analytical expressions for the magnetoelastic anisotropy constants of cubic magnetic systems are derived for rectangular and oblique distortions originating from epitaxial growth on substrates with lower crystal symmetry. In particular, the temperature variation of the magnetic properties of magnetic films grown on barium titanate (BaTiO3) substrates are explained in terms of strain-induced magnetic anisotropies caused by the temperature dependent phase transitions of BaTiO3. Our results quantify the experimental observations in ferromagnet/bto-based structures, which have been proposed as templates for magnetoelectric composite heterostructures.
Some of the Multiferroics [1] form a rare class of materials that exhibit magnetoelectric coupling arising from the coexistence of ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity, with potential for many technological applications.[2,3] Over the last decade, an active research on multiferroics has resulted in the identification of a few routes that lead to multiferroicity in bulk materials.[4-6] While ferroelectricity in a classic ferroelectric such as BaTiO3 is expected to diminish with the reducing particle size,[7,8] ferromagnetism cannot occur in its bulk form.[9] Here, we use a combination of experiment and first-principles simulations to demonstrate that multiferroic nature emerges in intermediate size nanocrystalline BaTiO3, ferromagnetism arising from the oxygen vacancies at the surface and ferroelectricity from the core. A strong coupling between a surface polar phonon and spin is shown to result in a magnetocapacitance effect observed at room temperature, which can open up possibilities of new electro-magneto-mechanical devices at the nano-scale.
Structural, electronic and dielectric properties of high-quality ultrathin BaTiO3 films are investigated. The films, which are grown by ozone-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on Nb-doped SrTiO3 (001) substrates and having thicknesses as thin 8 unit cells (3.2 nm), are unreconstructed and atomically smooth with large crystalline terraces. A strain-driven transition to 3D island formation is observed for films of of 13 unit cells thickness (5.2 nm). The high structural quality of the surfaces, together with the dielectric properties similar to bulk BaTiO3 and dominantly TiO2 surface termination, make these films suitable templates for the synthesis of high-quality metal-oxide multiferroic heterostructures for the fundamental study and exploitation of magneto-electric effects, such as a recently proposed interface effect in Fe/BaTiO3 heterostructures based on Fe-Ti interface bonds.
The quantitative understanding of converse magnetoelectric effects, i.e., the variation of the magnetization as a function of an applied electric field, in extrinsic multiferroic hybrids is a key prerequisite for the development of future spintronic devices. We present a detailed study of the strain-mediated converse magnetoelectric effect in ferrimagnetic Fe3O4 thin films on ferroelectric BaTiO3 substrates at room temperature. The experimental results are in excellent agreement with numerical simulation based on a two-region model. This demonstrates that the electric field induced changes of the magnetic state in the Fe3O4 thin film can be well described by the presence of two different ferroelastic domains in the BaTiO3 substrate, resulting in two differently strained regions in the Fe3O4 film with different magnetic properties. The two-region model allows to predict the converse magnetoelectric effects in multiferroic hybrid structures consisting of ferromagnetic thin films on ferroelastic substrates.
In contrast to the Pb-based magnetoelectric laminates (MELs), we find in the BaTiO3 and NiFe2O4 laminates (number of layers n = 5-25) that the longitudinal magnetoelectric (ME) voltage coefficient Alpha E33 becomes much larger than the transverse one due to preferential alignment of magnetic moments along the NiFe2O4 plane. Moreover, upon decreasing each layer thickness down to 15 um, we realize enhanced Alpha E33 up to 18 mV/ (cm Oe) and systematic increase of the ME sensitivity in proportion to n to achieve the largest in the Pb-free MELs (400*10^-6V/Oe), thereby providing pathways for tailoring ME coupling in mass-produced, environment friendly laminates.
Clear anomalies in the lattice thermal expansion (deviation from linear variation) and elastic properties (softening of the sound velocity) at the antiferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic transition are observed in the prototypical multiferroic BiFeO3 using a combination of picosecond acoustic pump-probe and high-temperature X-ray diffraction experiments. Similar anomalies are also evidenced using first-principles calculations supporting our experimental findings. Those calculations in addition to a simple Landau-like model we also developed allow to understand the elastic softening and lattice change at T_N as a result of magnetostriction combined with electrostrictive and magnetoelectric couplings which renormalize the elastic constants of the high-temperature reference phase when the critical T_N temperature is reached.