The enhanced electric field tunability of the microwave magnetoelectric effect in the YIG/Terfenol-D/PZT structure and its application

Highlights: • A trilayer ME YIG/Terfenol-D/PZT structure is proposed. • The microwave ME effect is enhanced due to the exchange coupling in YIG/Terfenol-D and the ME effect in Terfenol-D/PZT. • The YIG/Terfenol-D/PZT microstrip filter shows excellent electric tunability of FMR frequency shift of 300 MHz·cm/kV. -- Abstract: A trilayer magnetoelectric (ME) YIG/Terfenol-D/PZT structure (YTP) with a high ME coefficient is proposed. The enhanced ME effect of YTP comes mainly from the exchange coupling action in YIG/Terfenol-D bilayers (YT) and the ME effect in Terfenol-D/PZT bilayers (TP). The multi-physics coupling action among electric field, magnetic field and mechanical stress field is a novel way to enhance the ME effect of YTP. The exchange coupling action of YT is analyzed by the minimum free energy principle, and the relationship between the magnetization M₁ of the YIG layer and the M₂ of the Terfenol-D layer is obtained. The prominent ME effect was achieved in YTP, and the magnetization angle of the YIG layer rotated 40°·cm/kV. In an YTP microstrip filter, the exchange coupled effective field H_ex and the stress effective field H_σ affect the ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) frequency shift Δω, which can reach 300 MHz · cm/kV at an electric field of 8 kV/cm and a bias magnetic field of 1700 Oe. The excellent electric tunability of YTP makes it a promising candidate of the electric and magnetic field dual-tunable microstrip filter.