Magnetoelectric device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2023012461-A1
Application number	US-202217811547-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 8, 2022
Priority date	Jul 12, 2021
Publication date	Jan 12, 2023
Grant date	—

Abstract

A magnetoelectric (“ME”) device is disclosed. In one aspect, the ME device includes a first piezoelectric substrate portion and a second piezoelectric substrate portion; a magnetostrictive body with a magnetization oriented in a first direction, the magnetostrictive body arranged on and extending between the first and second portions; a pair of input electrodes arranged on the first portion; and a pair of output electrodes arranged on the second portion. The input electrodes are configured to induce a fringing electric field extending between the input electrodes via the first portion, thereby causing a deformation of the first portion which in turn causes a deformation of the magnetostrictive body such that the magnetization thereof is re-oriented to a second direction due to a reverse magnetostriction. An output voltage is induced between the output electrodes by a deformation of the second portion caused by the re-orientation of the magnetization of the magnetostrictive body.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A magnetoelectric device comprising:
a first piezoelectric substrate portion and a second piezoelectric substrate portion; a magnetostrictive body with a magnetization oriented in a first direction, the magnetostrictive body being arranged on and extending between the first and second piezoelectric substrate portions; a pair of input electrodes arranged on the first piezoelectric substrate portion and on opposite sides of the magnetostrictive body; and a pair of output electrodes arranged on the second piezoelectric substrate portion and on the opposite sides of the magnetostrictive body, wherein the input electrodes are configured to induce, in response to an input voltage, a fringing electric field extending between the input electrodes via the first piezoelectric substrate portion, thereby causing a deformation of the first piezoelectric substrate portion which in turn causes a deformation of the magnetostrictive body such that the magnetization thereof is re-oriented to a second direction due to reverse magnetostriction, and wherein an output voltage is induced between the output electrodes by a deformation of the second piezoelectric substrate portion caused by the re-orientation of the magnetization of the magnetostrictive body.

2 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , wherein the first and second directions are in-plane magnetization directions perpendicular to each other.

3 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , wherein the first direction is out-of-plane with the magnetoelectric device and perpendicular to the second direction.

4 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , further comprising a deformation coupling layer between the magnetostrictive body and the first and/or second piezoelectric substrate portions.

5 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , wherein the first and second piezoelectric substrate portions are made of different materials, wherein the first piezoelectric substrate portion has a higher piezoelectric coefficient than the second piezoelectric substrate portion and the second piezoelectric substrate portion has a higher inverse piezoelectric coefficient than the first piezoelectric substrate portion.

6 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , wherein the first and second piezoelectric substrate portions are part of the same piezoelectric substrate.

7 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 6 , wherein the first and second piezoelectric substrate portions of the piezoelectric substrate are separated by a non-piezoelectric material.

8 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , wherein the magnetostrictive body has an oblong shape with its longest dimension extending between the first and second piezoelectric substrate portions.

9 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , wherein the magnetostrictive body has a length extending between the first and second piezoelectric substrate portions of 10-100 nm.

10 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , wherein the input electrodes are arranged closer to the magnetostrictive body than the output electrodes are.

11 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , wherein the input electrodes have a larger surface facing toward the first piezoelectric substrate portion than the output electrodes have facing toward the second piezoelectric substrate portion.

12 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , wherein an output electrode of the pair of output electrodes is farther away from the magnetostrictive body than the other output electrode of the pair of output electrodes.

13 . The magnetoelectric device of claim 1 , wherein the output voltage is at least 80% of the input voltage.

14 . A circuit comprising a magnetoelectric device according to claim 1 , wherein the circuit is configured to supply an input voltage to the pair of input electrodes of the magnetoelectric device and read an output voltage from the pair of output electrodes of the magnetoelectric device.

15 . A circuit comprising at least two magnetoelectric devices according to claim 1 , the at least two magnetoelectric devices connected in series to each other to form a series of magnetoelectric devices, wherein the circuit is configured to supply an input voltage to a pair of input electrodes of a magnetoelectric device that is first in the series and read an output voltage from a pair of output electrodes of a magnetoelectric device that is last in the series.

Assignees

• Imec Vzw

Inventors

• Adelmann Hanns Christoph
• Ciubotaru Florin

Classifications

• H01L41/0472

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L41/12 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H01L41/20

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10N30/872 Primary

  Interconnections, e.g. connection electrodes of multilayer piezoelectric or electrostrictive devices · CPC title

• H10N35/00 Primary

  Magnetostrictive devices (integrated devices or assemblies of multiple devices H10N39/00) · CPC title