BiFeO3 for electronics, magnonics, photonics and beyond

BiFeO3 is a one of the very few room-temperature multiferroic materials [1]. Its rediscovery fourteen years ago was initially motivated by a possible application in electric-field controlled spintronics devices. Other important properties of BiFeO3 are its remarkable spontaneous polarization of 100 µC/cm² in the <111> pseudocubic direction, high Curie temperature of 1100 K and cycloidal spin order in the bulk. In addition, BiFeO3 possesses interesting optical characteristics, such as a band gap in the visible range (2.7 eV) and a large birefringence.

In this talk, I will first describe how BiFeO3's structural, ferroelectric, magnetic and optical properties can be tuned by epitaxial strain, thereby unveiling novel functionalities of interest for applications in various fields. I will then focus on the electric-field control of magnetism, in micronic devices and at the nanoscale. Finally, I will show how BiFeO3 can be integrated as a barrier in ferroelectric tunnel junctions showing a memristive response [3], with potential for neuromorphic computational architectures [4].
[1]            D. Sando, A. Barthélémy, and M. Bibes, J. Phys. Condens. Matter 26, 473201 (2014).
[2]            D. Sando et al, Nature Mater. 12, 641 (2013).
[3]            A. Chanthbouala et al, Nature Mater. 11, 860 (2012).
[9]            S. Boyn et al, Nature Commun. (in press)

Bio:
Manuel Bibes (Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, France, 1976) is a CNRS Research Director at the CNRS/Thales laboratory in Palaiseau, France. After graduating as an Engineer in Materials Physics (INSA Toulouse, 1998), he obtained a double PhD degree in France and Spain with a thesis on manganite interfaces supervised by J. Fontcuberta (ICMAB Barcelona, 2001). Following two years of postdoctoral work on oxide spintronics with A. Fert in Orsay he became a CNRS Researcher in 2003. As an independent researcher, Bibes then pioneered research lines on multiferroics and oxide-based spin-filter junctions and in 2009, he led the discovery of giant electroresistance in ferroelectric tunnel junctions and patented their use as ferroelectric memristors. He also explored novel routes for the electrical control of magnetism and spin transport in hybrid oxide-metal architectures. Bibes is the recipient of the 2013 EU40 Materials Prize of the E-MRS, an APS Fellow, and the laureate of a European Research Council grant to design novel states of matter through electronic correlations. He has coauthored more than 150 articles in international journals totalizing around 10000 citations, filed 7 patents and given over 140 invited talks at conferences and research institutes.