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Electrical control of antiferromagnetic domains in multiferroic BiFeO3 films at room temperature

Nature Materials volume 5, pages 823–829 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Multiferroic materials, which offer the possibility of manipulating the magnetic state by an electric field or vice versa, are of great current interest. In this work, we demonstrate the first observation of electrical control of antiferromagnetic domain structure in a single-phase multiferroic material at room temperature. High-resolution images of both antiferromagnetic and ferroelectric domain structures of (001)-oriented multiferroic BiFeO3 films revealed a clear domain correlation, indicating a strong coupling between the two types of order. The ferroelectric structure was measured using piezo force microscopy, whereas X-ray photoemission electron microscopy as well as its temperature dependence was used to detect the antiferromagnetic configuration. Antiferromagnetic domain switching induced by ferroelectric polarization switching was observed, in agreement with theoretical predictions.

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Figure 1: Schematic diagram of (001)-oriented BiFeO3 crystal structure and the ferroelectric polarization (bold arrows) and antiferromagnetic plane (shaded planes).
Figure 2: PFM images showing polarization domain structures of (001)-oriented BiFeO3 film.
Figure 3: PEEM and in-plane PFM images taken in the same area of an as-grown BiFeO3 film.
Figure 4: Temperature dependence of normalized order parameters of BiFeO3.
Figure 5: PEEM and in-plane PFM images of the same area of a BiFeO3 film before and after electrical poling.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by an ONR grant No. N00014-06-1-0008, N00014-05-1-0559 (CBE) monitored by Colin Wood and an ONR-MURI grant No. E-21-6RU-G4. This work was also supported by the National Science Foundation under grants DMR-0313764 (CBE) and ECS-0210449 (CBE) and a David & Lucile Packard Fellowship (CBE). Partial support from a LBL LDRD and a MARCO program is also gratefully acknowledged. C.E. and N.A.S. are supported by the NSF’s ‘Chemical Bonding Centers’ program, grant No. CHE-0434567 and made use of the central facilities provided by the NSF-MRSEC Award No. DMR05-20415.

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Author notes

  1. T. Zhao

    Present address: Seagate Research, 1251 Waterfront Place, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15222, USA

  2. A. Scholl and F. Zavaliche: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA

    T. Zhao, T. Zhao, F. Zavaliche, K. Lee, M. Barry, M. P. Cruz, Y. H. Chu & R. Ramesh

  2. Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA

    A. Scholl & A. Doran

  3. Centro de Ciencias de la Materia Condensada (CCMC)-UNAM Km 107, Carretera Tijuana-Ensenada Ensenada B.C., C.P 22800, Mexico

    M. P. Cruz

  4. Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 93106, USA

    C. Ederer & N. A. Spaldin

  5. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706, USA

    R. R. Das, D. M. Kim, S. H. Baek & C. B. Eom

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Zhao, T., Scholl, A., Zavaliche, F. et al. Electrical control of antiferromagnetic domains in multiferroic BiFeO3 films at room temperature. Nature Mater 5, 823–829 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1731

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