Controllable electric field tuning of anisotropic magnetic response of Ni/PMN-PT heterostructures

Abstract

Abstract Epitaxial Ni films with various thicknesses were grown on (0\xa00\xa01)-oriented 0.7Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.3PbTiO3 (PMN–PT) substrates. Electric field tuning (E-tuning) of ferromagnetic resonance field (Hr) was utilized to investigate the magnetic response of Ni films along different film directions. Butterfly-like Hr vs E curves are shown when magnetic field is applied along film edge. While the combination of both loop-like and butterfly-like Hr vs E curves are observed for Ni film with thicknesses of 180\xa0nm and 240\xa0nm, and merely loop-like curves can be seen for film thicknesses of 330\xa0nm and 510\xa0nm, as magnetic field is applied along film diagonal. These interesting phenomena are assumed to be related to ferroelectric and ferroelastic domain switching in PMN-PT, film strain status, as well as magnetic anisotropy in Ni film. This work demonstrates the feasibility of control of anisotropic magnetic response via electric field in multiferroic heterostructure.