Magnetoelectric effect in soft composite materials

By using the SQUID susceptometer the existence of an indirect magnetoelectricity in a soft composite material prepared as a mixture of a ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) and magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) was verified. It is shown that the orientation of MNPs is directly coupled to the FLC molecular director field. Such coupling allows the possibility of indirect coupling between the MNP´s magnetization and FLC´s polarization. This demonstrates the possibility to engineer the soft magnetoelectrics from mixtures of magnetic nanoparticles and ferroelectric liquid crystals.