Voltage-Impulse-Induced Nonvolatile Control of Inductance in Tunable Magnetoelectric Inductors

In this work, nonvolatile magnetoelectric tunable inductors are developed based on Metglas/(011) Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 multiferroic composites. They exhibit a large nonvolatile tunability up to 250% at 10 kHz and 120% at 1 MHz, in which the voltage control of inductance is achieved through strain-mediated magnetoelastic anisotropy. Such high nonvolatile tunability is attributed to a dramatic change of the in-plane lattice strain arising from non-180° ferroelastic domain switching in Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3. Electric field dependent inductance is then calculated from the strain-induced effective magnetic field and effective permeability change, and it is consistent with our experimental results. Engineering of ferroelastic domain states in multiferroic composites provides a pathway to realize nonvolatile electrically tunable inductors for lightweight, compact, power-efficient integrated power electronics, rf devices, and systems.