The integration of magnetic functional thin films (e.g., metals/alloys, ferrites, and manganites) with perovskite ferroelectrics offers an exciting opportunity to control magnetism by electric field (instead of magnetic field and electric current) through a strong magnetoelectric coupling effect, which is promising for developing dense, high-speed, ultralow-power tunable electronic and spintronic devices. Progress has been made toward electrically controlling nonvolatile tuning of magnetic states in these multiferroic heterostructures for information storage industry, which is usually attributed to ferroelectric polarization switching-induced interfacial charge effect. In this work, we propose a design principle that the electrically induced ferroelastic domain engineering in PMN-PT ferroelectric single-crystal substrates can be used to achieve robust nonvolatile tuning of magnetic and transport properties in elastically-coupled perovskite manganites and SrRuO₃ thin films in a reversible way. Such a nonvolatile and reversible response is striking, which stems from the intermediate lateral-polarization-induced stable strain state in the substrate during domain switching. Based on the piezoelectric response of the substrate, the quantitative determination of the resistance change and the lateral strain of the film can be obtained. These results demonstrate that lattice strain and physical properties of functional thin films epitaxially grown on PMN-PT substrates can be in situ, dynamically and reversibly modulated via ferroelectric poling, converse piezoelectric effect, polarization rotation, and ferroelastic effect. This method can be further extended to study the intrinsic strain effects of other functional thin films. Moreover, for manganite films the magnetically (optically) tunable strain effect, together with the strain-tunable magnetoresistance (photoresistance) effect, demonstrates strong mutual coupling between the strain and the magnetic field (light), which is essentially mediated by the electronic phase separation. Our findings are instructive for realizing ferroelastically driven nonvolatile manipulation of lattice-coupled magnetic and electrical properties in hybrid correlated oxides/ferroelectric systems and designing next-generation reconfigurable, high-frequency, ultralow-power nonvolatile electronic devices.

Ming Zheng obtained his Ph.D. degree in Materials Physics and Chemistry from Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015. After working at National University of Singapore, The University of Hong Kong, and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Dr. Zheng was awarded Japan Society for The Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship in the field of multiferroics and joined the Department of Physics in Nagoya University, Japan, in 2018. In 2019, he was invited to join China University of Mining and Technology as a faculty member through high-end talents program. His current research interests include functional (multiferroic, ferroelectric, magnetic and luminescent) thin-film materials and devices. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 papers published in international reputed journals including NPG Asia Mater. (2), Adv. Funct. Mater., Nano Energy, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces (2), J. Mater. Chem. C, Appl. Phys. Lett. (8), Phys. Rev. Applied (2), Phys. Rev. B. The paper published on Phys. Rev. Applied (2018) was selected as key scientific article by Advanced in Engineering (AIE), a famous global science and technology media organization. He also served as an Editorial Board Member for the journals Current Applied Materials, Current Chinese Science, and the referee for well-known journals, such as NPG Asia Mater., ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, J. Mater. Chem. C, Adv. Electron. Mater., Appl. Mater. Today, etc.