Magnetoelectric materials and devices

Over the past few decades, magnetoelectric (ME) materials and devices have been investigated extensively, which is one of the most interesting research topics since the revival of multiferroic laminates with large ME coupling coefficients. The existence of two or more ferroic properties in the ME systems plays key roles in the next generation of novel multifunctional devices. Strong ME coupling has been demonstrated in various ME systems, including single-phase bulk or thin-film materials and bulk or thin-film composites such as piezoelectric/magnetostrictive heterostructures. Based on the coupling mechanisms, a variety of device applications have attracted ever-increasing attention, such as magnetic field sensors, voltage tunable inductors, mechanical ME antennas, which are compact, lightweight, and power-efficient. These novel ME materials and devices provide great opportunities for next-generation magnetic field sensing, communication systems, spintronics, nonvolatile memory applications, etc. In this paper, we try to summarize the most recent progress on ME materials, phenomena, and devices in the past few years, with emphasis on thin-film composite materials and devices. Some unsolved questions and future directions where the community could head for are also provided.