TY - JOUR
T1 - Voltage-Induced Coercivity Reduction in Nanoporous Alloy Films: A Boost toward Energy-Efficient Magnetic Actuation
AU - Quintana, Alberto
AU - Zhang, Jin
AU - Isarain-Chávez, Eloy
AU - Menéndez, Enric
AU - Cuadrado, Ramón
AU - Robles, Roberto
AU - Baró, Maria Dolors
AU - Guerrero, Miguel
AU - Pané, Salvador
AU - Nelson, Bradley J.
AU - Müller, Carlos Maria
AU - Ordejón, Pablo
AU - Nogués, Josep
AU - Pellicer, Eva
AU - Sort, Jordi
PY - 2017/8/25
Y1 - 2017/8/25
N2 - © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Magnetic data storage and magnetically actuated devices are conventionally controlled by magnetic fields generated using electric currents. This involves significant power dissipation by Joule heating effect. To optimize energy efficiency, manipulation of magnetic information with lower magnetic fields (i.e., lower electric currents) is desirable. This can be accomplished by reducing the coercivity of the actuated material. Here, a drastic reduction of coercivity is observed at room temperature in thick (≈600 nm), nanoporous, electrodeposited Cu–Ni films by simply subjecting them to the action of an electric field. The effect is due to voltage-induced changes in the magnetic anisotropy. The large surface-area-to-volume ratio and the ultranarrow pore walls of the system allow the whole film, and not only the topmost surface, to effectively contribute to the observed magnetoelectric effect. This waives the stringent “ultrathin-film requirement” from previous studies, where small voltage-driven coercivity variations were reported. This observation expands the already wide range of applications of nanoporous materials (hitherto in areas like energy storage or catalysis) and it opens new paradigms in the fields of spintronics, computation, and magnetic actuation in general.
AB - © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Magnetic data storage and magnetically actuated devices are conventionally controlled by magnetic fields generated using electric currents. This involves significant power dissipation by Joule heating effect. To optimize energy efficiency, manipulation of magnetic information with lower magnetic fields (i.e., lower electric currents) is desirable. This can be accomplished by reducing the coercivity of the actuated material. Here, a drastic reduction of coercivity is observed at room temperature in thick (≈600 nm), nanoporous, electrodeposited Cu–Ni films by simply subjecting them to the action of an electric field. The effect is due to voltage-induced changes in the magnetic anisotropy. The large surface-area-to-volume ratio and the ultranarrow pore walls of the system allow the whole film, and not only the topmost surface, to effectively contribute to the observed magnetoelectric effect. This waives the stringent “ultrathin-film requirement” from previous studies, where small voltage-driven coercivity variations were reported. This observation expands the already wide range of applications of nanoporous materials (hitherto in areas like energy storage or catalysis) and it opens new paradigms in the fields of spintronics, computation, and magnetic actuation in general.
KW - coercivity
KW - energy efficiency
KW - magnetic actuation
KW - magnetoelectric effects
KW - nanoporous alloys
UR - https://ddd.uab.cat/record/189217
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201701904
DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201701904
M3 - Article
VL - 27
JO - Advanced Functional Materials
JF - Advanced Functional Materials
SN - 1616-301X
M1 - 1701904
ER -