Guohong Dai

Mechanically tunable magnetic properties of Fe81Ga19 films grown on flexible substrates

We investigated on magnetic properties of magnetostrictive Fe81Ga19 films grown on flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates under various mechanical strains. The unstrained Fe81Ga19 films exhibit a significant uniaxial magnetic anisotropy due to a residual stress in PET substrates. It was found that the squareness of hysteresis loops can be tuned by an application of strains, inward/compressive or outward/tensile bending of the films. A modified Stoner-Wohlfarth model with considering a distribution of easy axes in polycrystalline films was developed to account for the mechanically tunable magnetic properties in flexible Fe81Ga19 films. These results provide an alternative way to tune mechanically magnetic properties, which is particularly important for developing flexible magnetoelectronic devices.

Tunable photovoltaic effects in transparent Pb(Zr0.53,Ti0.47)O3 capacitors

We report an investigation on optical, ferroelectric, and photovoltaic properties of transparent Sn-doped In2O3 (ITO)/Pb(Zr0.53,Ti0.47)O3 (PZT)/ITO thin film capacitors. The ferroelectric PZT sandwiched structures grown on glass substrates exhibit a transmittance of 65% in the visible light range. The current-voltage characteristics show that the transparent PZT capacitors possess a significant photovoltaic response under a light illumination. Moreover, the photovoltaic response can be well tuned by an external electrical field, which can be understood by considering the tunable depolarized field in the PZT capacitors.

Static and high frequency magnetic properties of FeGa thin films deposited on convex flexible substrates

In this study, we provided an approach of pre-strained growth to significantly enhance the FMR frequency of magnetic films. A series of 100 nm magnetostrictive FeGa films were grown on flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates which were bowed onto the convex molds with different curvature radii. When the FeGa films were flatten to a plane, they were suffered a compressive strain arisen from the shaped substrates. As shown in Figs . 1(a) and 1(b), the FeGa films exhibit a remarkable uniaxial anisotropy perpendicular to the compressive strain. The strength of magnetic anisotropy is enhanced with increasing the compressive strain from 0 to 0 .78%. The permeability spectra measured in the frequency range from 0 .5 to 8 GHz are shown in Figs . 1(c) and 1(d). With the increase of the compressive-strain induced magnetic anisotropy, the initial permeability μi of the FeGa films inconspicuously decreases, while the FMR frequency shifts toward the higher values. In order to quantitatively understanding the effect of strain on the dynamic properties of the FeGa thin films, the experimentally obtained permeability spectra can be fitted by using the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) theory.

Effect of buffer layer and external stress on magnetic properties of flexible FeGa films

We systematically investigated the effect of a Ta buffer layer and external stress on the magnetic properties of magnetostrictive Fe81Ga19 films deposited on flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates. The Ta buffer layers could effectively smoothen the rough surface of PET. As a result, the FeGa films grown on Ta buffer layers exhibit a weaker uniaxial magnetic anisotropy and lower coercivity, as compared to those films directly grown on PET substrates. By inward and outward bending the FeGa/Ta/PET samples, external in-plane compressive and tensile stresses were applied to the magnetic films. Due to the inverse magnetostrictive effect of FeGa, both the coercivity and squareness of hysteresis loops for FeGa/Ta films could be well tuned under various strains.

Controllable strain-induced uniaxial anisotropy of Fe81Ga19 films deposited on flexible bowed-substrates

We propose a convenient method to induce a uniaxial anisotropy in magnetostrictive Fe81Ga19 films grown on flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates by bending the substrate prior to deposition. A tensile/compressive stress is induced in the Fe81Ga19 films when PET substrates are shaped from concave/convex to flat after deposition. The stressed Fe81Ga19 films exhibit a significant uniaxial magnetic anisotropy due to the internal stress arising from changes in shape of PET substrates. The easy axis is along the tensile stress direction and the coercive field along easy axis is increased with increasing the internal tensile stress. The remanence of hard axis is decreased with increasing the compressive stress, while the coercive field is almost unchanged. A modified Stoner-Wohlfarth model with considering the distribution of easy axes in polycrystalline films is used to account for the magnetic properties tuned by the strain-controlled magnetoelastic anisotropy in flexible Fe81Ga19 films. Our inv...

Effect of mechanical strain on magnetic properties of flexible exchange biased FeGa/IrMn heterostructures

We have fabricated flexible exchange biased heterostructures with magnetostrictive Fe81Ga19 alloy as the ferromagnetic layer and Ir20Mn80 as the antiferromagnetic layer on polyethylene terephthalate substrates. The mechanical strain can modify both the strength and the orientation of the uniaxial anisotropy, giving rise to the switching between the easy and hard magnetization directions. Different from the previously reported works on rigid exchange biased systems, a drastic decrease in exchange bias field was observed under a compressive strain with magnetic field parallel to the pinning direction, but only a slightly decrease was shown under a tensile strain. Based on a Stoner-Wohlfarth model calculation, we suggested that the distributions of both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic anisotropies be the key to induce the mechanically tunable exchange bias.

In-plane anisotropic converse magnetoelectric coupling effect in FeGa/polyvinylidene fluoride heterostructure films

We investigated the converse magnetoelectric (CME) effect in the Fe81Ga19/polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) heterostructure films. A weak in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy was observed in the as-deposited magnetostrictive FeGa films. When a positive (negative) electric field is applied on the ferroelectric PVDF substrates, both the coercivity and the squareness of magnetic hysteresis loops of FeGa films for the magnetic field parallel to the easy axis become larger (smaller), but for the magnetic field parallel to the hard axis the coercivity and the remanence get smaller (larger), indicating an anisotropic CME effect in FeGa/PVDF heterostructure films.

Electric-field control of magnetic anisotropy in Fe81Ga19/BaTiO3 heterostructure films

We investigate the control of magnetism with an electric field in Fe81Ga19(FeGa)/BaTiO3(BTO) heterostructure films. The as-prepared FeGa/BTO samples present a uniaxial magnetic anisotropy, which is ascribed to be induced by the spontaneous ferroelectric polarization of the BTO substrates. With the electric field applied on the BTO substrates increasing from 0 to 6 kV/cm, the coercivity of FeGa films measured along the BTO[110] direction increases from 28 to 41 Oe, while the squareness of the hysteresis loop decreases from 0.99 to 0.31, which indicates that the easy and hard axes of FeGa films are swapped. The ferroelectric domains of BTO substrates and the magnetic domains of FeGa films exhibit the same dependence on the applied electric fields, manifesting the strong magnetoelectric coupling between the ferroelectricity of BTO substrates and the magnetism of FeGa films.

Thermally assisted electric field control of magnetism in flexible multiferroic heterostructures.

Thermal and electrical control of magnetic anisotropy were investigated in flexible Fe81Ga19 (FeGa)/Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) multiferroic heterostructures. Due to the large anisotropic thermal deformation of PVDF (α1 = −13 × 10−6 K−1 and α2 = −145 × 10−6 K−1), the in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy (UMA) of FeGa can be reoriented 90° by changing the temperature across 295 K where the films are magnetically isotropic. Thus, the magnetization of FeGa can be reversed by the thermal cycling between 280 and 320 K under a constant magnetic field lower than coercivity. Moreover, under the assistance of thermal deformation with slightly heating the samples to the critical temperature, the electric field of ± 267 kV cm−1 can well align the UMA along the two orthogonal directions. The new route of combining thermal and electrical control of magnetic properties realized in PVDF-based flexible multiferroic materials shows good prospects in application of flexible thermal spintronic devices and flexible microwave magnetic materials.