September 2012

Journal

Electrical Control of the Magnetic State of Fe

By:
Gerhard, Lukas; Yamada, Toyo; Balashov, T.; Takác, Albert; Wesselink, R.J.H.; Daene, Markus W; Fechner, M.; Ostanin, S.; Ernst, Arthur ; Mertig, I.; Wulfhekel, Wulf
Journal Name:
IEEE Transactions on Magnetics
Page Number:
1619-1622
Volume:
47
Issue Number:
6
Publication Date:
September 2012
View DOI Listing:
https://doi.org/10.1109/TMAG.2011.2107506

Abstract

Magneto-electric coupling offers a new pathway to information storage in magnetic memory devices. This phenomenon has been observed in various materials ranging from insulators to semiconductors. In bulk metallic systems, magneto-electric coupling has been disregarded as the electric field cannot enter bulk metals. In this work, we show that a substantial magneto-electric coupling exists in metallic Fe nano-islands grown on Cu(111). Using the electric field in the tunnel junction of a scanning tunneling microscope, the magnetic order parameter and the crystal structure of Fe was changed on the nanometer scale. This allows high density nonvolatile information storage by means of magneto-electric coupling in a simple metallic system.