Magnetoelectric Coupling Characteristics of Multiphase Laminate Heterostructures Based on FeCuNbSiB Nanocrystalline Soft Magnetic Alloy

In this paper, a series of FeCuNbSiB/Terfenol-D/PZT (F/M/P) multiphase laminate heterostructures is presented, whose magnetoelectric (ME) coupling characteristics have been investigated. Compared with the traditional Terfenol-D/PZT (M/P) composites, the ME coupling characteristics of the proposed F/M/P heterostructures were significantly improved. The resonant and low-frequency ME voltage coefficient of the F/M/P heterostructures could be tuned by controlling the layers number N. In addition, the ME field coefficient of F/M/P heterostructures increases sharply and tends asymptotically toward a certain limiting value with the increase of thickness ratio t_m/t_p. When N is 7 (FMPMPMF), the maximum value of resonant ME voltage coefficient achieves 8.69 V/Oe, which is ~3.65 times higher than that for FMP, 1.81 times higher than that for FMPMF. Meanwhile, the maximum value of low-frequency ME voltage coefficient for FMPMPMF heterostructures achieves 69.6 mV/Oe at H_b = 378 Oe. Remarkably, it indicates that the F/M/P heterostructures have great potential as far as its application in highly sensitive dc magnetic field sensing and vibration energy harvesting.