Magnetoelectric effects in multilayered magnetostrictive/piezoelectric composites with Fe-based nanocrystalline alloy at zero bias magnetic field

• ME effects of multilayered FeNi-FACE/PZT composites with FeCuNbSiB are investigated.
• The zero-bias ME voltage coefficient (MEVC) in seven-layer composite is 5.14V/Oe.
• As the number of layer increases, zero-bias MEVC fist increases, and then decreases.

This paper presents a comparison of the resonant magnetoelectric (ME) voltage coefficients for multilayered PZT/FeNi-FACE composites with Fe-based nanocrystalline Fe73.5Cu1Nb3Si13.5B9 alloy (FeCuNbSiB) and without FeCuNbSiB. As the magnetic interaction between FeNi-FACE and FeCuNbSiB produces an internal magnetic field (Hint), it leads to the variation of the total dc magnetic bias and the ME voltage coefficient for multilayered PZT/FeNi-FACE composites with FeCuNbSiB, relative to multilayered PZT/FeNi-FACE composites without FeCuNbSiB. Correspondingly, a high ME voltage coefficient for multilayered PZT/FeNi-FACE composites with FeCuNbSiB at zero can be obtained. Furthermore, as the number of layer increases to 9, the zero-bias ME voltage coefficient first increases, and then decreases. The value of seven-layer composite reaches 5.14 V/Oe, which is about 2.35 times higher than that for three-layer, 1.53 times higher than that for five-layer, and 1.22 times higher than that for nine-layer. Such high performances enable the ME composites to possess an ideal sensing and make them promising for self-bias ME sensor application.