The E-Field-Induced Volatile and Nonvolatile Magnetization Switching of CoNi Thin Films in CoNi/PMN-PT Heterostructures

In this paper, we report the giant electric-field (E-field)-induced magnetic anisotropy and magnetization switching in CoNi/Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3 )O 3 -xPbTiO 3 (PMN-PT) magnetoelectric heterostructures. For CoNi/PMN-30%PT, the E-field-induced anisotropy shows a volatile behavior; whereas for CoNi/PMN-32%PT, a large and nonvolatile E-field-induced anisotropy field up to 54 kA/m is observed. These behaviors can be understood by measuring the strain versus the E-field curves of two kinds of substrates. On the basis of the E-field-induced nonvolatile magnetic switching, two stable magnetization states defined by applying E-field pulses were demonstrated in CoNi/PMN-32%PT heterostructure, which paves a new way for voltage-write magnetic random memory devices.