Revolutionizing Computer Memory: Fast and Compact Innovations

Multiferroics possess a unique property known as magnetoelectric coupling, allowing manipulation of magnetic properties with an electric field and vice versa. Recently, researchers have identified NiI2 as a material with exceptional magnetoelectric coupling, surpassing all known counterparts. This discovery positions NiI2 as a promising candidate for driving technological advancements in various fields.

Frank Gao, a postdoctoral fellow in physics at UT and co-lead author of the study, expressed the challenges faced in uncovering these effects at the atomic level of nickel iodide flakes. Despite the obstacles, the successful identification of NiI2's superior magnetoelectric coupling marks a significant leap forward in the multiferroics domain.

Graduate student Xinyue Peng, the project's other co-lead author, emphasized the implications of their findings, stating that the breakthrough opens doors for the development of rapid and energy-efficient magnetoelectric devices, including innovative magnetic memories.

Electric and magnetic fields play pivotal roles in our comprehension of the world and the advancement of modern technologies. Within materials, electric charges and atomic magnetic moments can align to create electric polarization or magnetization, leading to the formation of ferroelectrics or ferromagnets. However, multiferroics exhibit co-existing electric and magnetic orders, enabling entanglement between the two, a phenomenon known as magnetoelectric coupling.

The team of researchers achieved this feat by subjecting NiI2 to ultrashort laser pulses in the femtosecond range and monitoring the resulting changes in the material's electric and magnetic orders. Through detailed calculations, they identified the factors contributing to NiI2's robust magnetoelectric coupling, including the strong spin-orbit coupling and the unique magnetic order in nickel iodide.

Materials like NiI2, with significant magnetoelectric coupling, hold immense potential for diverse applications, such as compact and energy-efficient magnetic computer memory, quantum computing interconnects, and advanced chemical sensors. The researchers anticipate that their findings will pave the way for the discovery of other materials with similar properties and potentially enhance the magnetoelectric coupling in NiI2 through material engineering techniques.