Tuning the Magneto-Electric Effect of Multiferroic Composites via Crystallographic Texture

The magneto-electric effect is very much enhanced in multiferroic composite materials due to the long range ferroic ordering and stress mediated magneto-electric coupling. This opens the possibility for applications of multiferroic composites to advanced magnetic, electric and motion sensors. When the magneto-electric effect is magnetically induced, the simultaneously application of a dc and ac magnetic fields is required. The magneto-electric coupling is strongly dependent on both ac/dc applied fields, the measurement geometry and the material properties. In this paper we demonstrate that the crystallographic texture of the magnetic phase within the multiferroic composite can be used to tune the magneto-electric coupling via the dc bias field. NiFe₂O₄/PbZrTiO₃ bi-layer laminated multiferroic samples with various crystallographic textures of the NiFe₂O₄ have been investigated. We show almost a 300% reduction in the optimum dc bias magnetic field at which the maximum magneto-electric coupling has been observed. The observed reduction is directly related to the crystallographic texture of the NiFe₂O₄ component.