In-plane anisotropic converse magnetoelectric coupling effect in FeGa/polyvinylidene fluoride heterostructure films

We investigated the converse magnetoelectric (CME) effect in the Fe81Ga19/polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) heterostructure films. A weak in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy was observed in the as-deposited magnetostrictive FeGa films. When a positive (negative) electric field is applied on the ferroelectric PVDF substrates, both the coercivity and the squareness of magnetic hysteresis loops of FeGa films for the magnetic field parallel to the easy axis become larger (smaller), but for the magnetic field parallel to the hard axis the coercivity and the remanence get smaller (larger), indicating an anisotropic CME effect in FeGa/PVDF heterostructure films. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics.