Project description:Concepts for information storage and logical processing based on magnetic domain walls have great potential for implementation in future information and communications technologies. To date, the need to apply power hungry magnetic fields or heat dissipating spin polarized currents to manipulate magnetic domain walls has limited the development of such technologies. The possibility of controlling magnetic domain walls using voltages offers an energy efficient route to overcome these limitations. Here we show that a voltage-induced uniaxial strain induces reversible deterministic switching of the chirality of a magnetic vortex wall. We discuss how this functionality will be applicable to schemes for information storage and logical processing, making a significant step towards the practical implementation of magnetic domain walls in energy efficient computing.
Project description:The Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) is an antisymmetric exchange interaction that stabilizes spin chirality. One scientific and technological challenge is understanding and controlling the interaction between spin chirality and electric field. In this study, we investigate an unconventional electric field effect on interfacial DMI, skyrmion helicity, and skyrmion dynamics in a system with broken inversion symmetry. We design heterostructures with a 3d-5d atomic orbital interface to demonstrate the gate bias control of the DMI energy and thus transform the DMI between opposite chiralities. Furthermore, we use this voltage-controlled DMI (VCDMI) to manipulate the skyrmion spin texture. As a result, a type of intermediate skyrmion with a unique helicity is created, and its motion can be controlled and made to go straight. Our work shows the effective control of spin chirality, skyrmion helicity, and skyrmion dynamics by VCDMI. It promotes the emerging field of voltage-controlled chiral interactions and voltage-controlled skyrmionics.
Project description:The controlled immobilization of proteins on solid-state surfaces can play an important role in enhancing the sensitivity of both affinity-based biosensors and probe-free sensing platforms. Typical methods of controlling the orientation of probe proteins on a sensor surface involve surface chemistry-based techniques. Here, we present a method of tunably controlling the immobilization of proteins on a solid-state surface using electric field. We study the ability to orient molecules by immobilizing IgG molecules in microchannels while applying lateral fields. We use atomic force microscopy to both qualitatively and quantitatively study the orientation of antibodies on glass surfaces. We apply this ability for controlled orientation to enhance the performance of affinity-based assays. As a proof of concept, we use fluorescence detection to indirectly verify the modulation of the orientation of proteins bound to the surface. We studied the interaction of fluorescently tagged anti-IgG with surface immobilized IgG controlled by electric field. Our study demonstrates that the use of electric field can result in more than 100% enhancement in signal-to-noise ratio compared with normal physical adsorption.
Project description:Energy-efficient spintronic technology holds tremendous potential for the design of next-generation processors to operate at terahertz frequencies. Femtosecond photoexcitation of spintronic materials generates sub-picosecond spin currents and emission of terahertz radiation with broad bandwidth. However, terahertz spintronic emitters lack an active material platform for electric-field control. Here, we demonstrate a nonlinear electric-field control of terahertz spin current-based emitters using a single crystal piezoelectric Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PMN-PT) that endows artificial magnetoelectric coupling onto a spintronic terahertz emitter and provides 270% modulation of the terahertz field at remnant magnetization. The nonlinear electric-field control of the spins occurs due to the strain-induced change in magnetic energy of the ferromagnet thin-film. Results also reveal a robust and repeatable switching of the phase of the terahertz spin current. Electric-field control of terahertz spintronic emitters with multiferroics and strain engineering offers opportunities for the on-chip realization of tunable energy-efficient spintronic-photonic integrated platforms.
Project description:Electric-field-driven oxygen ion evolution in the metal/oxide heterostructures emerges as an effective approach to achieve the electric-field control of ferromagnetism. However, the involved redox reaction of the metal layer typically requires extended operation time and elevated temperature condition, which greatly hinders its practical applications. Here, we achieve reversible sub-millisecond and room-temperature electric-field control of ferromagnetism in the Co layer of a Co/SrCoO2.5 system accompanied by bipolar resistance switching. In contrast to the previously reported redox reaction scenario, the oxygen ion evolution occurs only within the SrCoO2.5 layer, which serves as an oxygen ion gating layer, leading to modulation of the interfacial oxygen stoichiometry and magnetic state. This work identifies a simple and effective pathway to realize the electric-field control of ferromagnetism at room temperature, and may lead to applications that take advantage of both the resistance switching and magnetoelectric coupling.
Project description:Controlling magnetization dynamics is imperative for developing ultrafast spintronics and tunable microwave devices. However, the previous research has demonstrated limited electric-field modulation of the effective magnetic damping, a parameter that governs the magnetization dynamics. Here, we propose an approach to manipulate the damping by using the large damping enhancement induced by the two-magnon scattering and a nonlocal spin relaxation process in which spin currents are resonantly transported from antiferromagnetic domains to ferromagnetic matrix in a mixed-phased metallic alloy FeRh. This damping enhancement in FeRh is sensitive to its fraction of antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic phases, which can be dynamically tuned by electric fields through a strain-mediated magnetoelectric coupling. In a heterostructure of FeRh and piezoelectric PMN-PT, we demonstrated a more than 120% modulation of the effective damping by electric fields during the antiferromagnetic-to-ferromagnetic phase transition. Our results demonstrate an efficient approach to controlling the magnetization dynamics, thus enabling low-power tunable electronics.
Project description:Electric fields can transform materials with respect to their structure and properties, enabling various applications ranging from batteries to spintronics. Recently electrolytic gating, which can generate large electric fields and voltage-driven ion transfer, has been identified as a powerful means to achieve electric-field-controlled phase transformations. The class of transition metal oxides provide many potential candidates that present a strong response under electrolytic gating. However, very few show a reversible structural transformation at room-temperature. Here, we report the realization of a digitally synthesized transition metal oxide that shows a reversible, electric-field-controlled transformation between distinct crystalline phases at room-temperature. In superlattices comprised of alternating one-unit-cell of SrIrO3 and La0.2Sr0.8MnO3, we find a reversible phase transformation with a 7% lattice change and dramatic modulation in chemical, electronic, magnetic and optical properties, mediated by the reversible transfer of oxygen and hydrogen ions. Strikingly, this phase transformation is absent in the constituent oxides, solid solutions and larger period superlattices. Our findings open up this class of materials for voltage-controlled functionality.
Project description:Several magnetic properties have recently become tunable with an applied electric field. Particularly, electrically controlled magnetic phase transitions and/or magnetic moments have attracted attention because they are the most fundamental parameters in ferromagnetic materials. In this study, we showed that an electric field can be used to control the magnetic moment in films made of Pd, usually a non-magnetic element. Pd ultra-thin films were deposited on ferromagnetic Pt/Co layers. In the Pd layer, a ferromagnetically ordered magnetic moment was induced by the ferromagnetic proximity effect. By applying an electric field to the ferromagnetic surface of this Pd layer, a clear change was observed in the magnetic moment, which was measured directly using a superconducting quantum interference device magnetometer. The results indicate that magnetic moments extrinsically induced in non-magnetic elements by the proximity effect, as well as an intrinsically induced magnetic moments in ferromagnetic elements, as reported previously, are electrically tunable. The results of this study suggest a new avenue for answering the fundamental question of "can an electric field make naturally non-magnetic materials ferromagnetic?".
Project description:Heat is detrimental for the operation of quantum systems, yet it fundamentally behaves according to quantum mechanics, being phase coherent and universally quantum-limited regardless of its carriers. Due to their robustness, superconducting circuits integrating dissipative elements are ideal candidates to emulate many-body phenomena in quantum heat transport, hitherto scarcely explored experimentally. However, their ability to tackle the underlying full physical richness is severely hindered by the exclusive use of a magnetic flux as a control parameter and requires complementary approaches. Here, we introduce a dual, magnetic field-free circuit where charge quantization in a superconducting island enables thorough electric field control. We thus tune the thermal conductance, close to its quantum limit, of a single photonic channel between two mesoscopic reservoirs. We observe heat flow oscillations originating from the competition between Cooper-pair tunnelling and Coulomb repulsion in the island, well captured by a simple model. Our results highlight the consequences of charge-phase conjugation on heat transport, with promising applications in thermal management of quantum devices and design of microbolometers.
Project description:Room-temperature skyrmions in magnetic multilayers are considered to be promising candidates for the next-generation spintronic devices. Several approaches have been developed to control skyrmions, but they either cause significant heat dissipation or require ultrahigh electric fields near the breakdown threshold. Here, we demonstrate electric-field control of skyrmions through strain-mediated magnetoelectric coupling in ferromagnetic/ferroelectric multiferroic heterostructures. We show the process of non-volatile creation of multiple skyrmions, reversible deformation and annihilation of a single skyrmion by performing magnetic force microscopy with in situ electric fields. Strain-induced changes in perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction strength are characterized experimentally. These experimental results, together with micromagnetic simulations, demonstrate that strain-mediated magnetoelectric coupling (via strain-induced changes in both the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction is responsible for the observed electric-field control of skyrmions. Our work provides a platform to investigate electric-field control of skyrmions in multiferroic heterostructures and paves the way towards more energy-efficient skyrmion-based spintronics.