Room‐Temperature Nonvolatile Memory Based on a Single‐Phase Multiferroic Hexaferrite

Abstract

Abstract The cross‐coupling between electric polarization and magnetization in multiferroic materials provides a great potential for creating next‐generation memory devices. Current studies on magnetoelectric (ME) applications mainly focus on ferromagnetic/ferroelectric heterostructures because single‐phase multiferroics with strong magnetoelectric coupling at room temperature are still very rare. Here a type of nonvolatile memory device is presented solely based on a single‐phase multiferroic hexaferrite Sr 3 Co 2 Fe 24 O 41 which exhibits nonlinear magnetoelectric effects at room temperature. The principle is to store binary information by employing the states (magnitude and sign) of the first‐order and the second‐order magnetoelectric coefficients (α and β), instead of using magnetization, electric polarization, and resistance. The experiments demonstrate repeatable nonvolatile switch of α and β by applying pulsed electric fields at room temperature, respectively. Such kind of memory device using single‐phase multiferroics paves a pathway toward practical applications of spin‐driven multiferroics.