Reversible Electric-Field Driven Magnetic Domain Wall Motion

Kévin J. A. Franke, Ben Van de Wiele, Yasuhiro Shirahata, Sampo J. Hämäläinen, Tomoyasu Taniyama, Sebastiaan van Dijken

Published 2014-11-25Version 1

Control of magnetic domain wall motion by electric fields has recently attracted scientific attention because of its potential for magnetic logic and memory devices. Here, we report on a new driving mechanism that allows for magnetic domain wall motion in an applied electric field without the concurrent use of a magnetic field or spin-polarized electric current. The mechanism is based on elastic coupling between magnetic and ferroelectric domain walls in multiferroic heterostructures. Pure electric-field driven magnetic domain wall motion is demonstrated for epitaxial Fe films on BaTiO$_3$ with in-plane and out-of-plane polarized domains. In this system, magnetic domain wall motion is fully reversible and the velocity of the walls varies exponentially as a function of out-of-plane electric field strength.