Interfacial coupling in multiferroic/ferromagnet heterostructures

Abstract

We report local probe investigations of the magnetic interaction between BiFeO${}_{3}$ films and a ferromagnetic Co${}_{0.9}$Fe${}_{0.1}$ layer. Within the constraints of intralayer exchange coupling in the Co${}_{0.9}$Fe${}_{0.1}$, the multiferroic imprint in the ferromagnet results in a collinear arrangement of the local magnetization and the in-plane BiFeO${}_{3}$ ferroelectric polarization. The magnetic anisotropy is uniaxial, and an in-plane effective coupling field of order 10 mT is derived. Measurements as a function of multiferroic layer thickness show that the influence of the multiferroic layer on the magnetic layer becomes negligible for 3 nm thick BiFeO${}_{3}$ films. We ascribe this breakdown in the exchange coupling to a weakening of the antiferromagnetic order in the ultrathin BiFeO${}_{3}$ film based on our x-ray linear dichroism measurements. These observations are consistent with an interfacial exchange coupling between the CoFe moments and a canted antiferromagnetic moment in the BiFeO${}_{3}$.