Colossal low-frequency resonant magnetomechanical and magnetoelectric effects in a three-phase ferromagnetic/elastic/piezoelectric composite

Colossal low-frequency resonant magnetomechanical (MM) and magnetoelectric (ME) coupling effects have been found in a three-phase composite made of Pb(Zr,Ti)O-3 ceramic fibers/phosphor copper-sheet unimorph and NdFeB magnets. The experimental results revealed that the ferromagnetic/elastic/piezoelectric three-phase composite with a cantilever beam structure could show huge bending MM coefficient of similar to 145.9 x 10(-3)/Oe (unit in bending radian per Oe) and ME voltage coefficient of similar to 16 000 V/cm.Oe at the first-order bending resonance frequency of similar to 5 Hz. The achieved results related to ME effect are at least one order of magnitude higher over those of other ME materials and devices reported ever. The extremely strong MM and ME couplings in the three-phase composite are due to strong magnetic force moment effect induced by the interaction between NdFeB magnets and the applied magnetic field, and further resonant enhancement via the strain-mediated phosphor copper-sheet with a relatively high mechanical quality factor. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4756919]