Nonvolatile ferroelectric field control of the anomalous Hall effect in BiFeO3/SrRuO3 bilayer

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that ferroelectric polarization in BiFeO3/SrRuO3 heterostructures can nonvolatily and reversibly control the anomalous Hall effect, offering a promising route for low-energy spintronic devices.

Contribution

It reveals ferroelectric polarization as a means to control the anomalous Hall effect in BFO/SRO heterostructures, supported by experimental fabrication, phenomenological modeling, and first-principles calculations.

Findings

AHE behavior is influenced by inhomogeneous SRO layers.

Ferroelectric polarization can reversibly modulate the AHE.

Band structure modifications under polarization were confirmed by calculations.

Abstract

In this work, the BiFeO3 (BFO)/SrRuO3 (SRO) heterostructure was fabricated and the anomalous Hall effect (AHE) was investigated the in BFO/SRO. It is found the nonmonotonic anomalous Hall resistivity behavior in BFO/SRO is originated from the inhomogeneous SRO layer instead of the topological Hall effect. It is surprised that the AHE in BFO/SRO structure can be manipulated by ferroelectric polarization of BFO. Moreover, an inhomogeneous phenomenological model has been applied on those structure. Furthermore, the modification of band structure in SRO under ferroelectric polarization was discussed by first principle calculation. The ferroelectric-manipulated AHE suggests a new pathway to realize nonvolatile, reversible and low energy-consuming voltage-controlled spintronic devices.