Micromagnetic simulation of Magnetoelectric Multiferroics
- Research Team
- Rebecca Carey
- Investigators
- Hans Fangohr
The focus of my research is on the micromagnetic modelling of a branch of materials called multiferroics which not only exhibit ferromagnetism but also ferroelectricity. Although discovered in the 1960s, it is only in recent years that interest has been given to these materials. Due to this, computational modelling of these materials is a completely unexplored territory.
One particular interest in these materials is on magnetoelectric multiferroics. The magnetoelectric effect is characterized by the appearance of an electric polarization under the application of a magnetic field or by the appearance of a magnetization under the application of an electric field. Thus, for magnetoelectric multiferroics, electric and magnetic degrees of freedom coexist and couplings between the electric polarization and magnetization are possible.
There is little understanding of the coupling between these magnetic and electric order parameters though. The focus of this project is towards the understanding of these couplings, in order to create, for the first time, a magnetoelectric micromagnetic model.
Normally in nature, materials posses just one ferroic property, so the co-existence of multiple ferroic properties make these materials particularly exciting. They provides many opportunities for new applications, such as the possibility of electrically controlled magnetization, giving rise to an entirely new concept of electric field assisted magnetic data storage and switching devices
This research is funded by the EPSRC.
Categories
Physical Systems and Engineering simulation: Materials, Micromagnetics
Algorithms and computational methods: Finite differences, Finite elements, Multi-physics
Transdisciplinary tags: Complex Systems, Scientific Computing