Dual advance in multiferroic materials will lead to new electronic memory devices

The research team, led by North Carolina State University, has already created prototypes of the devices and is in the process of testing them.

‘These multiferroic materials [with ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties] offer the possibility of switching a material’s magnetism with an electric field, or switching its electric polarity with a magnetic field - making them very attractive for use in next-generation, low-power, non-volatile memory storage devices,’ said Dr Jay Narayan, John C. Fan Distinguished Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at NC State and senior author of two papers describing the work.

Researchers had previously known that it is possible to create a multiferroic material by layering barium titanate (BTO), which is ferroelectric, and lanthanum strontium manganese oxide (LSMO), which is ferromagnetic. According to NC State, these bilayer thin films weren’t feasible for large-scale use because they could not be integrated on a silicon chip because the constituent elements of the thin films would diffuse into the silicon.