A strain-controlled magnetostrictive pseudo spin valve

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates electric-field driven strain control of magnetic properties in a pseudo spin valve, showing how strain-induced anisotropy affects magnetoresistance and switching fields, advancing energy-efficient spintronic devices.

Contribution

It introduces a method to modulate magnetic properties via strain in a pseudo spin valve on a ferroelectric substrate, highlighting strain-induced effects on magnetoresistance and switching behavior.

Findings

Magnetoresistance ratio decreases with electric field due to strain-induced magnetoelastic anisotropy.

Strain shifts the switching field of the magnetostrictive Co layer.

Py layer's switching field remains unaffected due to negligible magnetostriction.

Abstract

Electric-field control of magnetism via inverse magnetostrictive effect is an efficient path towards improving energy-efficient storage and sensing devices based on giant magnetoresistance effect. In this letter, we report on lateral electric-field driven strain-mediated modulation of magnetic properties in Co$/$Cu$/$Py pseudo spin valve grown on ferroelectric PMN-PT substrate. We show a decrease of the giant magnetoresistance ratio of the pseudo spin valve with increasing electric field, which is attributed to the deviation of the Co layer magnetization from the initial direction due to strain-induced magnetoelastic anisotropy contribution. Additionally, we demonstrate that strain-induced magnetic anisotropy effectively shifts the switching field of the magnetostrictive Co layer, while keeping the switching field of the nearly zero-magnetostrictive Py layer unaffected due to its negligible magnetostriction constant. We argue that magnetostrictively optimized magnetic films in properly engineered multilayered structures can offer a path to enhancing the selective magnetic switching in spintronic devices.