New Multiferroic Materials from Building Blocks
Figure. A chemical design strategy for creating artificial multiferroics using oxide nanosheets. Copyright : NIMS
A research group led by principal investigator Minoru Osada and fellow Takayoshi Sasaki, International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), successfully developed room temperature multiferroic materials by a layer-by-layer assembly of nanosheet building blocks. Multiferroic materials are expected to play a vital role in the development of next-generation multifunctional electronic devices.
The design of new multiferroics, or materials that display both ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism, is of fundamental importance for new electronic technologies.
However, the co-existence of ferroelectricity and magnetic order at room temperature in single compounds is rare, and heterostructures with such multiferroic properties have only been made with complex techniques (such as pulsed-laser deposition and molecular beam epitaxy).
Seeking to develop room-temperature multiferroics, the research group utilized a new chemical design for artificial multiferroic thin films using two-dimensional oxide nanosheets as building blocks (Figure 1). This approach enables engineering the interlayer coupling between the ferromagnetic and ferroelectric orders, as demonstrated by artificial superlattices composed of ferromagnetic Ti0.8Co0.2O2 nanosheets and dielectric perovskite-structured Ca2Nb3O10 nanosheets.
The (Ti0.8Co0.2O2/Ca2Nb3O10/Ti0.8Co0.2O2) superlattices exhibit the multiferroic effects at room temperature, which can be modulated by tuning the interlayer coupling (i.e., the stacking sequence).
This study opens a pathway to create new artificial materials with tailored multiferroic properties. In addition, the successful development of room temperature multiferroic nanofilms may lead to their application to new memory devices, taking advantage of their multifunctionality and low-voltage operation.
This study was published in the online version of the Journal of the American Chemical Society on June 13, 2016.
Associated links
Journal information
(“Coexistence of Magnetic Order and Ferroelectricity at 2D Nanosheet Interfaces”, Bao-Wen Li, Minoru Osada, Yasuo Ebina, Shigenori Ueda, and Takayoshi Sasaki; J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2016, 138 (24), pp 7621–7625; DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6b02722
Media Contact
More Information:
http://www.researchsea.comAll latest news from the category: Materials Sciences
Materials management deals with the research, development, manufacturing and processing of raw and industrial materials. Key aspects here are biological and medical issues, which play an increasingly important role in this field.
innovations-report offers in-depth articles related to the development and application of materials and the structure and properties of new materials.
Newest articles
A ‘language’ for ML models to predict nanopore properties
A large number of 2D materials like graphene can have nanopores – small holes formed by missing atoms through which foreign substances can pass. The properties of these nanopores dictate many…
Clinically validated, wearable ultrasound patch
… for continuous blood pressure monitoring. A team of researchers at the University of California San Diego has developed a new and improved wearable ultrasound patch for continuous and noninvasive…
A new puzzle piece for string theory research
Dr. Ksenia Fedosova from the Cluster of Excellence Mathematics Münster, along with an international research team, has proven a conjecture in string theory that physicists had proposed regarding certain equations….