Giant Magnetoelectric Response From A Piezoelectric/ Magnetostrictive Laminated Composite Combined With A Piezoelectric Transformer

摘要

Magnetoelectric (multiferroic) materials have recently drawn increased attention owing to their multifunctionality, which makes them promising for new multifunctional devices, such as transducers, actuators, and sensors. The magnetoelectric (ME) effect is defined as an induced electric polarization under an applied magnetic field (H) and/or an induced magnetization under an external electric field (E). Single-phase ME materials are not suitable for practical applications owing to their weak ME coupling and low working temperature. As an alternative, composites of magnetostrictive layers and piezoelectric layers laminated together have been found to exhibit excellent ME properties above room temperature. How to further enhance the ME voltage coefficient of ME composites is an important research topic in order to meet the practical application demands for sensors and transducers. In this Communication, we report a giant ME response obtained from the combination of a piezoelectric/ magnetostrictive laminated composite with a piezoelectric transformer. The output ME voltage is amplified by the additional piezoelectric transformer layer. The outstanding advantages of the proposed structure include giant ME voltage output, high efficiency, no power consumption, and short response time (ca. 10~(-6)s).