Low pressure drive of the domain wall in Pt/Co/Au/Cr2O3/Pt thin films by the magnetoelectric effect

Abstract

The magnetoelectric (ME) effect is one of the methods for electrically controlling the magnetization direction. In this study, we investigated the ME-driven domain wall creep and depinning using a Pt/Co/Au/ME-Cr2O3/Pt thin film. The domain switching process is governed by domain wall propagation rather than the nucleation of reversed domains, similar to a pure ferromagnet. The domain wall velocity v increases exponentially with the ME pressure, that is, the simultaneous application of magnetic H and electric E fields. The v– E curve under a constant H can be scaled by the ME pressure with the assistance of the exchange bias. We determined the depinning threshold, pinning energy scale, and depinning velocity based on the model for the magnetic domain wall creep. Compared with the depinning velocity in various other systems, it was suggested that the ME-driven mechanism could yield a fast domain wall velocity utilizing the low pressure.