Room-temperature electric field modulation of magnetization in a helimagnet

Room-temperature electric field control of magnetization is of interest for the potential application of low consumption nonvolatile memory. Here, we report the realization of electric field modulation of magnetization in a single phase multiferroic material Ba_0.5Sr_1.5Co₂Fe₁₁AlO₂₂. In this work, we use static and dynamic measurements to reveal the magnetoelectric coupling between magnetization (M) and polarization (P). At the temperature of 10 K, the first order magnetoelectric (ME) term is dominated and the magnetization linearly changes with the electric field. While at room temperature, the quadratic term become apparent, leading to symmetric butterfly-like P–H and M–E curves. Our study reveals that an alternating longitudinal conical (ALC) phase induced exchange interaction may exist in Y type hexaferrite Ba_0.5Sr_1.5Co₂Fe₁₁AlO₂₂ and contribute to the ME coupling mechanism. (paper)