Electric field induced magnetic switching at room temperature: Switching speed, device scaling and switching energy

The switching energy, speed and scaling behavior are calculated for a magneto-electric device incorporating the multiferroic material bismuth ferrite (BFO). For this purpose, a massively parallel phase field model is developed for simulation of the device. First, multidomain switching of thin film ferroelectric is shown to match with experimental measurements. We show that the switching energy in these devices can be an order of magnitude lower than other alternative approaches for magnetization reversal. We also show that the coercive voltage scales almost linearly in scaled BFO islands; however, the switching speed requires further study.