Monolithic magnetoelectric heterostructure with enhanced ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties and tunable magnetic properties

• We have fabricated monolithic PZT/Metglas magnetoelectric heterostructure with thickness ~27 µm.
• Highly textured PZT film showed enhanced ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties.
• Fatigue problem is well solved in PZT/Metglas due to the released clamping compared with PZT/STO.
• Magnetic response in Metglas can be controlled by strain from the piezoelectric PZT layer.

This paper details fabrication of Pb(Zr0.6Ti0.4)O3 (PZT) layer on Metglas (MG) foils—a magnetoelectric monolithic herterostructure with reduced fatigue and enhanced ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties. Polarization–electric field measurements revealed reduced fatigue for PZT–MG monoliths due to reduced clamping: remnant polarization (2Pr) increased from 24 µC/cm2 to 91 µC/cm2 after the first 5×105 cycles. In comparison, PZT on SrTiO3 (STO) exhibited a monotonous decrease in Pr. Piezoelectric measurements demonstrated a d33 value two times larger for PZT/MG than PZT/STO. Finally, magnetic hysteresis loop measurements showed a dramatic increase of the saturation magnetic field for PZT/MG, due to elastic strain at the interface.