Electric-field control of magnetism and resistance states in multiferroic heterostructures

Multiferroic heterostructures, composed of ferromagnetic (FM) and ferroelectric (FE) materials, provide an important way for exploring control of magnetism via electric fields. We have combined ferroelectric Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)0.7Ti0.3O3 (PMN-PT) with different materials and studied electric-field control of the magnetic and resistance states of these multiferroic heterostructures. In this talk, I'll present our recent progress in electric-field control of magnetism and resistance states, including (magnetic) skyrmions and magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). We demonstrate strain-mediated electric-field control of skyrmions through magnetoelectric coupling in multiferroic heterostructure [1]. We also show that individual skyrmions on nanodots can be created and deleted by local electric fields in nanostructured multiferroic heterostructures and the control is reversible, nonvolatile and magnetic field-free [2]. Moreover, we explore room-temperature creation and manipulation of individual skyrmion bags in magnetic multilayered disks [3]. We also demonstrate electric-field control of magnetism and resistance states of MgO-based MTJs in multiferroic heterostructures for both the in-plane MTJs [4,5] and perpendicular MTJs [6,7]. Through various characterizations and micromagnetic simulation, the manipulation mechanisms are uncovered. Our work demonstrates the interesting new physics and potential applications of electric-field control of magnetism and resistance states in multiferroic heterostructures.
References
[1] You Ba et al., Nature Communciations, 12, 322 (2021).
[2] Yutong Wang et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. In revision.
[3] Quan Liu et al., Nature Communciations, 16, 125 (2025).
[4] P. S. Li et al., Adv. Mater. 46, 2340 (2014)
[5] A. T. Chen et al., Nature Commun. 10, 243 (2019)
[6] Yike Zhang et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadl4633 (2024)
[7] Weideng Sun et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadj8379 (2024).