Engineering new limits to magnetostriction through metastability in iron-gallium alloys

P B Meisenheimer; R A Steinhardt; S H Sung; L D Williams; S Zhuang; M E Nowakowski; S Novakov; M M Torunbalci; B Prasad; C J Zollner; Z Wang; N M Dawley; J Schubert; A H Hunter; S Manipatruni; D E Nikonov; I A Young; L Q Chen; J Bokor; S A Bhave; R Ramesh; J-M Hu; E Kioupakis; R Hovden; D G Schlom; J T Heron

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-22793-x

Engineering new limits to magnetostriction through metastability in iron-gallium alloys

Nat Commun. 2021 May 12;12(1):2757. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-22793-x.

Authors

P B Meisenheimer¹, R A Steinhardt², S H Sung¹, L D Williams³, S Zhuang⁴, M E Nowakowski⁵, S Novakov⁶, M M Torunbalci⁷, B Prasad⁸, C J Zollner⁹, Z Wang⁹, N M Dawley², J Schubert¹⁰, A H Hunter¹¹, S Manipatruni¹², D E Nikonov¹², I A Young¹², L Q Chen¹³, J Bokor⁵, S A Bhave⁷, R Ramesh^{8

14

15}, J-M Hu⁴, E Kioupakis¹, R Hovden¹, D G Schlom^{2

16

17}, J T Heron¹⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
³ Department of Materials Design and Innovation, University at Buffalo - The State University of New York, Buffalo, NY, USA.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
⁵ Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁶ Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
⁷ OxideMEMS Lab, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
⁸ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁹ School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
¹⁰ Peter Grünberg Institute (PGI-9) and JARA Fundamentals of Future Information Technology, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany.
¹¹ Michigan Center for Materials Characterization, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
¹² Components Research, Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, OR, USA.
¹³ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Penn State University, State College, PA, USA.
¹⁴ Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, CA, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
¹⁶ Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Ithaca, NY, USA.
¹⁷ Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung, Max-Born-Str. 2, Berlin, Germany.
¹⁸ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. [email protected].

Abstract

Magnetostrictive materials transduce magnetic and mechanical energies and when combined with piezoelectric elements, evoke magnetoelectric transduction for high-sensitivity magnetic field sensors and energy-efficient beyond-CMOS technologies. The dearth of ductile, rare-earth-free materials with high magnetostrictive coefficients motivates the discovery of superior materials. Fe_1-xGa_x alloys are amongst the highest performing rare-earth-free magnetostrictive materials; however, magnetostriction becomes sharply suppressed beyond x = 19% due to the formation of a parasitic ordered intermetallic phase. Here, we harness epitaxy to extend the stability of the BCC Fe_1-xGa_x alloy to gallium compositions as high as x = 30% and in so doing dramatically boost the magnetostriction by as much as 10x relative to the bulk and 2x larger than canonical rare-earth based magnetostrictors. A Fe_1-xGa_x - [Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃]_0.7-[PbTiO₃]_0.3 (PMN-PT) composite magnetoelectric shows robust 90° electrical switching of magnetic anisotropy and a converse magnetoelectric coefficient of 2.0 × 10^-5 s m^-1. When optimally scaled, this high coefficient implies stable switching at ~80 aJ per bit.