Enhanced electrical manipulation of magnetic susceptibility in ferromagnetic amorphous alloy and piezoelectric bimorph heterostructure

In this study, we report an enhanced electrical manipulation of magnetic susceptibility in ferromagnetic amorphous alloy ribbon using a piezoelectric bimorph actuator. Theoretically, the strain produced by the piezoelectric bimorph and then coupled into the amorphous alloy ribbon is larger than that of a single piezoelectric plate under an identical applied electric field, thus resulting in a stronger magnetoelectric (ME) coupling for electrically manipulating magnetic susceptibility. Our experimental results have shown that the initial susceptibility tunability of the amorphous alloy ribbon upon the tuning electric field applied on the piezoelectric bimorph ranging from 0 kV/cm to 5 kV/cm can reach up to 750% at low-frequency of 1 kHz and maintain 80% at 1MHz. This study expands the structure design of ME smart devices, especially the electrically controllable magnetic devices. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.