Enhanced magnetoelectric effects in composite of piezoelectric ceramics, rare-earth iron alloys, and shape-optimized nanocrystalline alloys

An enhancement for magnetoelectric (ME) effects is studied in a three-phase ME architecture consisting of two magnetostrictive Terfenol-D (Tb0.3Dy0.7Fe1.92) plates, a piezoelectric PZT (Pb(Zr,Ti)O3) plate, and a pair of shape-optimized FeCuNbSiB nanocrystalline alloys. By modifying the conventional shape of the magnetic flux concentrator, the shape-optimized flux concentrator has an improved effective permeability (μ eff ) due to the shape-induced demagnetizing effect at its end surface. The flux concentrator concentrates and amplifies the external magnetic flux into Terfenol-D plate by means of changing its internal flux concentrating manner. Consequently, more flux lines can be uniformly concentrated into Terfenol-D plates. The effective piezomagnetic coefficients (d 33m ) of Terfenol-D plate and the ME voltage coefficients (α ME ) can be further improved under a lower magnetic bias field. The dynamic magneto-elastic properties and the effective magnetic induction of Terfenol-D are taken into account to derive the enhanced effective ME voltage coefficients (α ME ,eff ), the consistency of experimental results and theoretical analyses verifies this enhancement. The experimental results demonstrate that the maximum d 33m in our proposed architecture achieves 22.48 nm/A under a bias of 114 Oe. The maximum α ME in the bias magnetic range 0–900 Oe reaches 84.73 mV/Oe under the low frequency of 1 kHz, and 2.996 V/Oe under the resonance frequency of 102.3 kHz, respectively. It exhibits a 1.43 times larger piezomagnetic coefficient and a 1.87 times higher ME voltage coefficient under a smaller magnetic bias of 82 Oe than those of a conventional Terfenol-D/PZT/Terfenol-D composite. These shape-induced magnetoelectric behaviors provide the possibility of using this ME architecture in ultra-sensitive magnetic sensors.