Research Themes +
Energy Technologies Area (ETA) researchers are continually building on the strong scientific foundation we have developed over the past 50 years. We address the world’s most pressing climate challenges by bringing to market energy-efficient innovations across the buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors. ETA is at the forefront of developing better batteries for electric vehicles; improving the country's aging electrical grid and innovating distributed energy and storage solutions; developing grid-interactive, efficient buildings; and providing the most comprehensive market and data analysis worldwide for renewable technologies like wind and solar.
Strategic Initiatives +
The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) Strategic Plan is the guiding force for our research and development for the next ten years. It clearly charts a path toward clean-energy solutions and focuses on five detailed Strategic Initiatives. The Plan provides an in-depth look at how ETA is accelerating research to provide affordable, clean energy to all while accomplishing deep, economy-wide decarbonization, looking to avoid a rise in global average temperature while simultaneously developing solutions to increase humanity's resilience to extreme weather volatility.
Publications
News +
For media inquiries,
please contact ETA
Interim Communications Manager
Kiran Julin

kjulin@lbl.gov
About Us +
The Energy Technologies Area (ETA) is unique in translating fundamental scientific discoveries into scalable technology adoption. Our approach combines an understanding of the marketplace and the role of state and federal regulation and policies. ETA's research drives real-world, practical results that affect and improve the everyday lives of Americans and those across the globe. Saving energy and battling the Climate Crisis are key to the foundation of our research, which is driven by technoeconomic analysis and in-lab experimentation and discovery.

Deterministic switching of ferromagnetism at room temperature using an electric field

Publication Type

Journal Article

Authors

Heron, J.T., J.L. Bosse, Q. He, Y. Gao, M. Trassin, L. Ye, J.D. Clarkson, C. W. Wang, J. F. Liu, S. Salahuddin, D.C. Ralph, D.G. Schlom, J. Íñiguez, B.D. Huey, Ramamoorthy Ramesh

DOI

10.1038/nature14004

Abstract

The technological appeal of multiferroics is the ability to control magnetism with electric field1-3. For devices to be useful, such control must be achieved at room temperature. The only single-phase multiferroicmaterial exhibiting unambiguousmagnetoelectric coupling at room temperature is BiFeO3 (refs 4 and 5). Its weak ferromagnetismarises fromthe canting of the antiferromagnetically aligned spins by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction6-9. Prior theory considered the symmetry of the thermodynamic ground state and concluded that direct 180-degree switching of theDMvector by the ferroelectric polarization was forbidden10,11. Instead, we examined the kinetics of the switching process, something not considered previously in theoretical work10-12. Here we show a deterministic reversal of theDMvector and cantedmoment using an electric field at roomtemperature. First-principles calculations reveal that the switching kinetics favours a two-step switching process. In each step the DMvector and polarization are coupled and 180-degree deterministic switching of magnetization hence becomes possible, in agreement with experimental observation. We exploit this switching to demonstrate energy-efficient control of a spin-valve device at room temperature. The energy per unit area required is approximately an order of magnitude less than that needed for spin-transfer torque switching13,14.Given that theDMinteraction is fundamental to singlephasemultiferroics andmagnetoelectrics3,9, our results suggest ways to engineermagnetoelectric switching and tailor technologically pertinent functionality for nanometre-scale, low-energy-consumption, non-volatile magnetoelectronics. © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited.

Journal

Nature

Volume

516

Year of Publication

2014

ISSN

00280836

Notes

cited By 323

Research Areas

Ramesh Lab