Fashioning the architectures of the self-assembled multiferroic nanocomposite thin film

Abstract

Multiferroic nanocomposite is recognized as one class of multiferroic with high magnetoelectric coefficient offered by their excellent magnetic-electric coupling via strain interaction. The strain interaction or structural coupling in this system is very important, which is, it can be tuned further by modifying the nanocomposite architectures. Here, we conduct a comparative study of the multiferroic nanocomposite BiFeO3 (BFO)-CoFe2O4 (CFO)/SrTiO3 (STO) with various vertically aligned nanocomposite architectures. It appears that both of BFO and CFO phases can be formed as a matrix and/or a pillars or vice versa depending on the crystalline orientation of STO substrate. The formation of matrix-pillars are strongly influenced by surface energy anisotropy between constituent BFO and CFO phases.