The microstructure, crystallographic structure and magnetic properties of ferroelectric-ferromagnetic PZT/CoCr heterostructures have been investigated by using XRD, SEM and VSM. Upon applying an electric field, the in-plane magnetization of the heterostructures decreases at various bias magnetic fields. The change in magnetization and the magnetization reversed voltage were obtained. The results demonstrate that the change in magnetic anisotropy can be controlled by electric field via strain-mediated magnetoelectric coupling. | Communications in Physics, Vol. 24, No. 3S1 (2014), pp. 99-102 DOI: STRUCTURE AND MAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF PZT/CoCr HETEROSTRUCTURES NGUYEN THI MINH HONG, PHAM THAI HA, AND PHAM DUC THANG Faculty of Engineering Physics and Nanotechnology and Laboratory for Micro and Nanotechnology, University of Engineering and Technology, Vietnam National University, Hanoi E-mail: hongntm@ Received 04 April 2014 Accepted for publication 24 August 2014 Abstract. The microstructure, crystallographic structure and magnetic properties of ferroelectric-ferromagnetic PZT/CoCr heterostructures have been investigated by using XRD, SEM and VSM. Upon applying an electric field, the in-plane magnetization of the heterostructures decreases at various bias magnetic fields. The change in magnetization and the magnetization reversed voltage were obtained. The results demonstrate that the change in magnetic anisotropy can be controlled by electric field via strain-mediated magnetoelectric coupling. Keywords: ferromagnetics, ferroelectrics, heterostructures. I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, there has been great interest in multifferoic materials as either single phase or as heterostructures [1, 2]. In these systems, thanks to the coupling existing between their magnetic and electric properties, one can control magnetic properties by an electric field through converse magneto-electric effect and vice versa. Such materials currently receive considerable interest for they open new perspectives in terms of memory devices [3–6]. In this work, we report on the study of microstructure, crystallographic structure and magnetic properties of PZT/CoCr heterostructures. II. EXPERIMENTAL In our study, micrometer-thick CoCr magnetic films were firstly deposited on 5 × 5 mm2 polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) substrates with different thickness using a RF magnetron sputtering. Next the PZT/CoCr heterostructures were formed by bonding CoCr ferromagnetic films and commercial .
