title: Microstructure and properties of well-ordered multiferroic Pb(Zr,Ti)O(3)/CoFe(2)O(4) nanocomposites.
abstract: A nanofabrication technique combining pulsed laser deposition and a nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide membrane mask is being proposed to prepare various types of multiferroic nanocomposites, viz. periodically ordered CoFe(2)O(4) dots covered by a continuous Pb(Zr,Ti)O(3) layer, Pb(Zr,Ti)O(3) dots covered with CoFe(2)O(4), and Pb(Zr,Ti)O(3)/CoFe(2)O(4) bilayer heterostructure dots. By properly tuning the processing parameters, epitaxial nanodot-matrix composites can be obtained. For the composite consisting of CoFe(2)O(4) nanostructures covered by a Pb(Zr,Ti)O(3) film, an unexpected out-of-plane magnetic easy axis induced by the top Pb(Zr,Ti)O(3) layer and a uniform microdomain structure can be observed. The nanocomposites tested by piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) exhibit strong piezoelectric signals, and they also display magnetoelectric coupling revealed by magnetic-field dependent capacitance measurement.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, D-06120 Halle, Germany. gaoxingsen@gmail.com
authors.forename: Xingsen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Brian J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Rodriguez
authors.forename: Lifeng
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Balaji
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Birajdar
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pantel
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ziese
authors.forename: Marin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alexe
authors.forename: Dietrich
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hesse