Magnetoelectric response analysis of the piezoelectric/piezomagnetic thin-film heterostructure derived by low energy cluster beam deposition

The piezoelectric/piezomagnetic thin-film heterostructure has been prepared by using low energy cluster beam to deposit Tb-Fe clusters onto the Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 (PZT) film substrate. The magnetoelectric voltage coefficient of the heterostructure is larger than that of the reported all-oxide ferroelectric-ferromagnetic composite film. A magnetic-mechanical-electronic transformation model is designed to deeply investigate the origin of the giant magnetoelectric effect. And the coupling coefficient k between the piezoelectric and piezomagnetic phase is introduced into this model to analysis the magnetoelectric response of the heterostructure. It is found that the coupling coefficient k plays a key pole in the production of the magnetoelectric effect for piezoelectric/piezomagnetic thin-film heterostructure. This work describes an ideal way to optimize the magnetoelectric effect of the piezoelectric/piezomagnetic thin-film heterostructure and facilitates their applications in MEMS devices.