Non-Volatile Electric-Field Toggling Between Antiferromagnetic States.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 42504869.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acsnano.6c09046.
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Abstract
Magnetoelectric multiferroics are foreseen as paramount materials to control magnetism with an electric-field, targeting energy-efficient spintronics. The archetypal room-temperature antiferromagnetic ferroelectric, BiFeO<sub>3</sub>, harbors an incommensurate antiferromagnetic cycloid whose propagation direction is locked to ferroelectric domains. Epitaxial strain was shown to affect this antiferromagnetic ordering, stabilizing different cycloidal propagation directions, or a collinear antiferromagnetic state. Here we demonstrate the reversible, nonvolatile, electric-field triggered magnetic phase transition between two distinct antiferromagnetic states at room temperature. Using SrTiO<sub>3</sub> vicinal substrates, we stabilize a single ferroelectric domain associated with a single antiferromagnetic cycloidal state in BiFeO<sub>3</sub> epitaxial thin films. Electrically reversing the ferroelectric polarization deterministically within the same ferroelastic domain induces a reversible transition from a cycloidal to a collinear antiferromagnetic state, as directly visualized by scanning nitrogen vacancy (NV) magnetometry. These results bring insights into magnetoelectric devices for ultrafast and low-power spintronics.