Magnetoelectric multiferroics are materials that exhibit correlated ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties (i.e., a magnetoelectric effect). The resulting ability of these materials to simultaneously store data in electric polarization and magnetic moment could increase data storage density and data processing speed while reducing energy consumption. This project aims to design and fabricate new composite multiferroic nanostructures with enhanced interactions between the electric polarization and spin by coupling ferroelectric and ferromagnetic components (preliminary examples of such nanostructures can be seen in the figure). First, ferromagnetic components with variable compositions and ferroelectric components with different nanostructure sizes and morphologies will be synthesized and characterized. The optimized ferroelectric and ferromagnetic components will be coupled to form the composite multiferroics, which will be probed at ensemble and single nanostructure levels to investigate the magneto-electrical properties. Additional tests will be run to optimize the fabrication method and to propose improved materials, configurations, and compositions for multiferroics systems that demonstrate enhanced magnetoelectric coupling in quantum communication applications. The results of this work can inform future designs of multifunctional nanomaterials for improved information processing and memory storage technologies.
(a) Magnetic hysteresis loops of multiferroic nanocomposite at 5 K and 300 K. Inset: Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image of ferromagnetic cobalt ferrite nanocubes used to prepare the composite. (b) TEM image of composite core-shell multiferroic nanowire and the corresponding elemental line scan. (c) High resolution TEM image of an interface between ferroelectric and ferromagnetic components.(What is CFO and PTO?)