Influence of relative thickness on multiferroic properties of bilayered Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3–CoFe2O4 thin films

Abstract

Multiferroic bilayered thin films consisting of Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 (PZT) and CoFe2O4 (CFO) layers of different relative thicknesses were prepared on a general Pt/Ti/SiO2/Si substrate via a simple solution processing. The influence of the thickness fraction on their properties including ferroelectric, ferromagnetic, and magnetoelectric properties in the PZT-CFO bilayered thin films was investigated. Our results showed that the thickness fractions (or relative thicknesses) of the layers have a significant effect not only on the magnetic and electric properties of the bilayered films but also on their magnetoelectric response. The bilayered thin films with the intermediate thickness fraction of around 0.6 exhibited a maximum magnetoelectric effect.