Electric-field control of magnetic domain wall motion and local magnetization reversal

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© 2012 Nature Publishing Group. This is the accepted version of the following article: Lahtinen, Tuomas H. E. & Franke, Kevin J. A. & van Dijken, Sebastiaan. 2012. Electric-field control of magnetic domain wall motion and local magnetization reversal. Scientific Reports. Volume 2. 00258/1-6. ISSN 2045-2322 (printed). DOI: 10.1038/srep00258, which has been published in final form at http://www.nature.com/articles/srep00258. This final version is published with permission from Nature Publishing Group under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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Volume Title

School of Science | A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2012

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

00258/1-6

Series

Scientific Reports, Volume 2

Abstract

Spintronic devices currently rely on magnetic switching or controlled motion of domain walls by an external magnetic field or spin-polarized current. Achieving the same degree of magnetic controllability using an electric field has potential advantages including enhanced functionality and low power consumption. Here we report on an approach to electrically control local magnetic properties, including the writing and erasure of regular ferromagnetic domain patterns and the motion of magnetic domain walls, in CoFe-BaTiO3 heterostructures. Our method is based on recurrent strain transfer from ferroelastic domains in ferroelectric media to continuous magnetostrictive films with negligible magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Optical polarization microscopy of both ferromagnetic and ferroelectric domain structures reveals that domain correlations and strong inter-ferroic domain wall pinning persist in an applied electric field. This leads to an unprecedented electric controllability over the ferromagnetic microstructure, an accomplishment that produces giant magnetoelectric coupling effects and opens the way to electric-field driven spintronics.

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Keywords

spintronics, multiferroics, magnetism, domain dynamics

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Citation

Lahtinen, Tuomas H. E. & Franke, Kevin J. A. & van Dijken, Sebastiaan. 2012. Electric-field control of magnetic domain wall motion and local magnetization reversal. Scientific Reports. Volume 2. 00258/1-6. ISSN 2045-2322 (printed). DOI: 10.1038/srep00258