Large zero-bias field magnetoelectric effect in YFeO3-Y3Fe5O12 composites

Due to their large conversion between magnetic and electrical energy at room temperature, multiphase magnetoelectric or multiferroic materials have received considerable attention from the Spintronics´ community. The multiferroic composites or heterostructures are considered to have great potential use for next generation multifunctional devices such as sensors, transducers, filters, high frequency multilayer chip inductors, and tunable microwave devices, etc. It has been known that tunable microwave devices possess tremendous market potential in the microwave communications sector. Of particular interest are electrically-tunable microwave devices by means of magnetoelectric materials having low microwave loss and high ME coupling coefficients. In this work, we aim to investigate the magnetoelectric effect of microwave composites consisting of low microwave linewidth yttrium-iron garnet, Y₃Fe₅O₁₂ (YIG) and ferroelectric YFeO₃ (YIP) phases. Both components not only contain the same ions: Y³⁺, Fe³⁺, and O^2-, but also have small lattice mismatch, which is favorable to epitaxial growth of thin films.