Size driven barrier to chirality reversal in electric control of magnetic vortices in ferromagnetic nanodiscs.

New high density storage media and spintronic devices come about with a progressing demand for the miniaturization of ferromagnetic structures. Vortex ordering of magnetic dipoles in such structures has been repeatedly observed as a stable state, offering the possibility of chirality in these states as a means to store information at high density. Electric pulses and magnetoelectric coupling are attractive options to control the chirality of such states in a deterministic manner. Here, we demonstrate the chirality reversal of vortex states in ferromagnetic nanodiscs via pulsed electric fields using a micromagnetic approach and focus on the analysis of the energetics of the reversal process. A strong thickness dependence of the chirality reversal in the nanodiscs is found that emanates from the anisotropy of the demagnetizing fields. Our results indicate that chiral switching of the magnetic moments in thin discs can give rise to a transient vortex-antivortex lattice not observed in thicker discs. This difference in the chirality reversal mechanism emanates from profoundly different energy barriers to overcome in thin and thicker discs. We also report the polarity-chirality correlation of a vortex that appears to depend on the aspect ratio of the nanodiscs.

Domain control of carrier density at a semiconductor-ferroelectric interface.

Control of charge carrier distribution in a gated channel via a dielectric layer is currently the state of the art in the design of integrated circuits such as field effect transistors. Replacing linear dielectrics with ferroelectrics would ultimately lead to more energy efficient devices as well as the added advantage of the memory function of the gate. Here, we report that the channel-off/channel-on states in a metal/ferroelectric/semiconductor stack are actually transitions from a multi domain state to a single domain state of the ferroelectric under bias. In our approach, there is no a priori assumption on the single or multi-domain nature of the ferroelectric layer that is often neglected in works discussing the ferroelectric-gate effect on channel conductivity interfacing a ferroelectric. We also predict that semiconductor/ferroelectric/semiconductor stacks can function at even lower gate voltages than metal/ferroelectric/semiconductor stacks when an n-type semiconductor is placed between the ferroelectric and the gate metal. Our results suggest the ultimate stability of the multidomain state whenever it interfaces a semiconductor electrode and that a switchable single domain state may not be necessary to achieve effective control of conductivity in a p-type channel. Finally, we discuss some experimental results in the literature in light of our findings.

Influence of long-range dipolar interactions on the phase stability and hysteresis shapes of ferroelectric and antiferroelectric multilayers.

Phase transition and field driven hysteresis evolution of a two-dimensional Ising grid consisting of ferroelectric-antiferroelectric multilayers that take into account the long range dipolar interactions were simulated by a Monte-Carlo method. Simulations were carried out for a 1 + 1 bilayer and a 5 + 5 superlattice. Phase stabilities of components comprising the structures with an electrostatic-like coupling term were also studied. An electrostatic-like coupling, in the absence of an applied field, can drive the ferroelectric layers toward 180° domains with very flat domain interfaces mainly due to the competition between this term and the dipole-dipole interaction. The antiferroelectric layers do not undergo an antiferroelectric-to-ferroelectric transition under the influence of an electrostatic-like coupling between layers as the ferroelectric layer splits into periodic domains at the expense of the domain wall energy. The long-range interactions become significant near the interfaces. For high periodicity structures with several interfaces, the interlayer long-range interactions substantially impact the configuration of the ferroelectric layers while the antiferroelectric layers remain quite stable unless these layers are near the Neel temperature. In systems investigated with several interfaces, the hysteresis loops do not exhibit a clear presence of antiferroelectricity that could be expected in the presence of anti-parallel dipoles, i.e., the switching takes place abruptly. Some recent experimental observations in ferroelectric-antiferroelectric multilayers are discussed where we conclude that the different electrical properties of bilayers and superlattices are not only due to strain effects alone but also due to long-range interactions. The latter manifests itself particularly in superlattices where layers are periodically exposed to each other at the interfaces.