Integrated Magnetics and Multiferroics for Compact and Power Efficient Sensing, Power, RF, Microwave and mm-Wave Electronics

The coexistence of electric polarization and magnetization in multiferroic materials provides great opportunities for realizing magnetoelectric coupling, including electric field control of magnetism, or vice versa, through a strain mediated magnetoelectric coupling in layered magnetic/ferroelectric multiferroic heterostructures [1-8]. Strong magnetoelectric coupling has been the enabling factor for different multiferroic devices, which however has been elusive, particularly at RF/microwave frequencies. In this presentation, I will cover the most recent progress on new integrated multiferroic devices for sensing, memory, RF and microwave electronics. Specifically, we will introduce magnetoelectric multiferroic materials, and their applications in different devices, including: (1) ultra-sensitive magnetometers based on RF NEMS magnetoelectric sensors with picoTesla sensitivity for DC and AC magnetic fields, which are the best room temperature nano-scale magnetometers and can be used for magnetoencephalography; (2) novel ultra-compact multiferroic antennas with φ200 µm — 0.8 µm or λ0/600 in size, -18dBi gain, ~0.2% bandwidth, self-biased operation and 1~2% voltage tunable operation frequency which can be used for embedded or wearable antennas; and (3) novel GHz magnetic and multiferroic inductors with a wide operation frequency range of 0.3~3GHz, and a high quality factor of close to 20, and a voltage tunable inductance of 50%~150%. At the same time, I will also demonstrate other voltage tunable multiferroic devices, including tunable isolating bandpass filters, tunable bandstop filters, tunable phase shifters, magnetoelectric random access memory, etc. These novel integrated multiferroic devices show great promise for applications in compact, lightweight and power efficient sensing, power, RF, microwave and mm-wave integrated electronics.
Reference: 1. N.X. Sun and G. Srinivasan, SPIN, 02, 1240004 (2012); 2. J. Lou, et al., Advanced Materials, 21, 4711 (2009); 3. . J. Lou, et al. Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 112508 (2009); 4. M. Liu, et al. Advanced Functional Materials, 21, 2593 (2011); 5. T. Nan, et al. Scientific Reports, 3, 1985 (2013); 6. M. Liu, et al. Advanced Materials, 25, 1435 (2013); 7. M. Liu, et al. Advanced Functional Materials, 19, 1826 (2009); 8. Ziyao Zhou, et al. Nature Communications, 6, 6082 (2015).

Nian Sun is professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, and Director of the W.M. Keck Laboratory for Integrated Ferroics, Northeastern University. He received his Ph.D. degree from Stanford University. Prior to joining Northeastern University, he was a Scientist at IBM and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. Dr. Sun was the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, the Sren Buus Outstanding Research Award, etc. His research interests include novel magnetic, ferroelectric and multiferroic materials, devices and subsystems. He has over 200 publications and over 20 patents and patent applications. One of his papers was selected as the "ten most outstanding full papers in the past decade (2001~2010) in Advanced Functional Materials". Dr. Sun has given over 100 plenary or invited presentations and seminars in national and international conferences and universities. He is an editor of IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, and a fellow of the Institute of Physics, and of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.