Design World

  • Home
  • Technologies
    • 3D CAD
    • Electronics • electrical
    • Fastening & Joining
    • Factory automation
    • Linear Motion
    • Motion Control
    • Test & Measurement
    • Sensors
    • Fluid power
  • Learn
    • Ebooks / Tech Tips
    • Engineering Week
    • Future of Design Engineering
    • MC² Motion Control Classrooms
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • Webinars
  • LEAP AWARDS
  • Leadership
    • 2022 Voting
    • 2021 Winners
  • Design Guide Library
  • Resources
    • 3D Cad Models
      • PARTsolutions
      • TraceParts
    • Digital Issues
      • Design World
      • EE World
    • Women in Engineering
  • Supplier Listings

Superlattice Design Realizes Elusive Multiferroic Properties

By Northwestern University | August 24, 2015

Share

Superlattice structure of lithium osmate and lithium niobate. Image credit: NorthwesternFrom the spinning disc of a computer’s hard drive to the varying current in a transformer, many technological devices work by merging electricity and magnetism. But the search to find a single material that combines both electric polarizations and magnetizations remains challenging.

This elusive class of materials is called multiferroics, which combine two or more primary ferroic properties. Northwestern University‘s James Rondinelli and his research team are interested in combining ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity, which rarely coexist in one material at room temperature.

“Researchers have spent the past decade or more trying to find materials that exhibit these properties,” said Rondinelli, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering. “If such materials can be found, they are both interesting from a fundamental perspective and yet even more attractive for technological applications.”

In order for ferroelectricity to exist, the material must be insulating. For this reason, nearly every approach to date has focused on searching for multiferroics in insulating magnetic oxides. Rondinelli’s team started with a different approach.

They instead used quantum mechanical calculations to study a metallic oxide, lithium osmate, with a structural disposition to ferroelectricity and sandwiched it between an insulating material, lithium niobate.

While lithium osmate is a non-magnetic and non-insulating metal, lithium niobate is insulating and ferroelectric but also non-magnetic. By alternating the two materials, Rondinelli created a superlattice that — at the quantum scale — became insulating, ferromagnetic, and ferroelectric at room temperature.

“The polar metal became insulating through an electronic phase transition,” Rondinelli explained. “Owing to the physics of the enhanced electron-electron interactions in the superlattice, the electronic transition induces an ordered magnetic state.”

Supported by the Army Research Office and the US Department of Defense, the research appears in the August 21 issue of Physical Review Letters. Danilo Puggioni, a postdoctoral fellow in Rondinelli’s lab, is the paper’s first author, who is joined by collaborators at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy.

This new design strategy for realizing multiferroics could open up new possibilities for electronics, including logic processing and new types of memory storage. Multiferroic materials also hold potential for low-power electronics as they offer the possibility to control magnetic polarizations with an electric field, which consumes much less energy.

“Our work has turned the paradigm upside down,” Rondinelli said. “We show that you can start with metallic oxides to make multiferroics.”


Filed Under: Materials • advanced

 

Related Articles Read More >

Self-lubricating and wear-resistant: igus bar stock for food, continuous operation and high media resistance
Minnesota Rubber and Plastics announces plans for new Innovation Center
The importance of resin selection
EXE014 - Image 1
Composite materials help place Italian race team in pole position

DESIGN GUIDE LIBRARY

“motion

Enews Sign Up

Motion Control Classroom

Design World Digital Edition

cover

Browse the most current issue of Design World and back issues in an easy to use high quality format. Clip, share and download with the leading design engineering magazine today.

EDABoard the Forum for Electronics

Top global problem solving EE forum covering Microcontrollers, DSP, Networking, Analog and Digital Design, RF, Power Electronics, PCB Routing and much more

EDABoard: Forum for electronics

Sponsored Content

  • Global supply needs drive increased manufacturing footprint development
  • How to Increase Rotational Capacity for a Retaining Ring
  • Cordis high resolution electronic proportional pressure controls
  • WAGO’s custom designed interface wiring system making industrial applications easier
  • 10 Reasons to Specify Valve Manifolds
  • Case study: How a 3D-printed tool saved thousands of hours and dollars

Design World Podcasts

May 17, 2022
Another view on additive and the aerospace industry
See More >
Engineering Exchange

The Engineering Exchange is a global educational networking community for engineers.

Connect, share, and learn today »

Design World
  • Advertising
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Manage your Design World Subscription
  • Subscribe
  • Design World Digital Network
  • Engineering White Papers
  • LEAP AWARDS

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media
Privacy Policy | Advertising | About Us

Search Design World

  • Home
  • Technologies
    • 3D CAD
    • Electronics • electrical
    • Fastening & Joining
    • Factory automation
    • Linear Motion
    • Motion Control
    • Test & Measurement
    • Sensors
    • Fluid power
  • Learn
    • Ebooks / Tech Tips
    • Engineering Week
    • Future of Design Engineering
    • MC² Motion Control Classrooms
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • Webinars
  • LEAP AWARDS
  • Leadership
    • 2022 Voting
    • 2021 Winners
  • Design Guide Library
  • Resources
    • 3D Cad Models
      • PARTsolutions
      • TraceParts
    • Digital Issues
      • Design World
      • EE World
    • Women in Engineering
  • Supplier Listings