Spatially-resolved electric-field manipulation of magnetism in multiferroic heterostructures*

Electric-field control of magnetism is essential for exploiting new concepts for dense, fast, and non-volatile random access memory with reduced energy consumption. We studied electric-field control of magnetism in CoFeB/Pb(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)_0.7Ti_0.3O₃ multiferroic heterostructure at the mesoscale using spatially-resolved techniques including scanning Kerr microscopy and scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis with in situ electric fields. Different types of magnetic responses were revealed, and analysis suggests that they are related to different types of ferroelectric domain-switching, which provides a path for designing magnetoelectric devices through domain engineering. Our work demonstrates the interesting new physics and potential applications of electric-field control of magnetism in the multiferroic heterostructures.