Good multiferroic properties and excellent bending tunability, as well as obvious magnetoelectric (ME) coupling effects are the issues that need to be solved urgently in order for multiferroic composite materials to be used in the next generation of low-power flexible electronic devices. 

A team led by Professor Liu Ming from the School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, and a team led by Professor Luo Zhenlin from the University of Science and Technology of China, have worked together to prepare the ultraflexible and malleable iron (Fe)/BaTiO3 (BTO) multiferroic heterostructures on the basis of previous research on the superelastic tunable polarization barium titanate film.

During the phase transformation from the rhombohedral phase to the orthorhombic phase of BTO layers in the heating process, a large ME coupling coefficient of 120 Oe °C−1 along the out‐of‐plane direction is obtained.

Ultraflexible Fe/BTO heterostructures are found to have a 690 Oe ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) field shift along the out‐of‐plane direction under flexible tuning (R = 5 mm).

This work will pave the way towards flexible spintronic and functional devices with fast speed, good portability, and low energy consumption.

The research results were published online in the internationally-renowned journal Advanced Functional Materials with the title "Ultraflexible and Malleable Fe/BaTiO3Multiferroic Heterostructures for Functional Devices" and was selected as the cover article of Inside Cover.

Assistant Professor Zhao Yanan, lecturer Peng Renci and PhD student Guo Junting from the School of Electronic Science and Engineering of Xi'an Jiaotong University, and graduate student Liu Zhijie from the University of Science and Technology of China, are the co-first authors.

Professor Liu Ming of the Xi'an Jiaotong University and Professor Luo Zhenlin of the University of Science and Technology of China are the co-corresponding authors. In addition, the research work was reported by Wiley Materials Views China.

Paper link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adfm.202009376