Rahul Barman

Multiferroic tunnel junction of Ni50.3Mn36.9Sb12.8/BiFeO3/Ni50.3Mn36.9Sb12.8 for magneto-electric random access memory devices

A multiferroic tunnel junction composed of two ferromagnetic shape memory alloy electrodes separated by a multiferroic barrier was fabricated from a Ni50.3Mn36.9Sb12.8/BiFeO3/Ni50.3Mn36.9Sb12.8 trilayer. A large exchange bias field (HEB) of ∼59 Oe at room temperature was found for this trilayer. Besides the exchange bias effect in this multiferroic tunnel junction, one of the most interesting results was the magnetoelectric effect, which is manifested by the transfer of strain from the Ni50.3Mn36.9Sb12.8 electrodes to the BiFeO3 tunnel barrier. The magnetic field dependence of the junction resistance was observed at room temperature after aligning the ferroelectric polarization of the BiFeO3 barrier with the poling voltage of ±3 V. A change in junction resistance was also observed between the magnetic parallel and antiparallel states of the electrodes, suggesting an entire flip of the magnetic domains against the magnetic field. After reversing the polarization of the BiFeO3 barrier between the two direct...

Exchange bias effect in NiMnSb/CrN heterostructures deposited by magnetron sputtering

Exchange bias has been studied in various Ni50Mn36.8Sb13.2/CrN heterostructures with different CrN thicknesses (15 nm–80 nm), grown on Si (100) substrate using magnetron sputtering. The shift in hysteresis loop up to 51 Oe from the origin was observed at 10 K for Ni-Mn-Sb film without CrN layer. On the other hand, a significant shifting of hysteresis loop was observed with antiferromagnetic (AFM) CrN layer in Ni50Mn36.8Sb13.2/CrN heterostructure. The exchange coupled 140 nm Ni50Mn36.8Sb13.2/35 nm CrN heterostructure exhibited a relatively large exchange coupling field of 148 Oe at 10 K compared to other films, which may be related to uncompensated and pinned AFM spins at FM-AFM interface and different AFM domain structures for different thicknesses of CrN layer. Further nanoindentation measurements revealed the higher values of hardness and elastic modulus of about 12.7 ± 0.38 GPa and 179.83 ± 1.24 GPa in Ni50Mn36.8Sb13.2/CrN heterostructures making them promising candidate for various multifunctional MEM...

Coexistance of magnetoelectric effect and exchange bias in Ni50.3Mn36.9Sb12.8/BiFeO3 heterostructure thin film

In the present study structural, magnetic and ferroelectric properties of Ni50.3Mn36.9Sb12.8/BiFeO3 heterostructure thin film, grown on LaNiO3 coated Si (100) substrate has been systematically investigated. Ni50.3Mn36.9Sb12.8 film exhibits L21 structure with preferred (220) orientation. The bottom LaNiO3 layer was implemented to favor the growth of pervoskite BiFeO3 film with (l00) orientation. The shift in hysteresis loop up to 34 Oe from the origin was observed at 300 K which is mainly due to the coupling of FM-AFM spins at the interface. Besides the exchange bias effect, large coupling between ferromagnetic and ferroelectric order parameters was also found with maximum coupling sensitivity of 7.58 V/cm-Oe at 300K in Ni50.3Mn36.9Sb12.8/BiFeO3 heterostructure thin film. The observed magneto-electric effect in this heterostructure is due to the transfer of strain from ferromagnetic shape memory alloy Ni50.3Mn36.9Sb12.8 layer to multiferroic BiFeO3 layer in the presence of magnetic field. Hence, coexistenc...