2016/04/30 by D. Sztenkiel, M. Foltyn, G. P. Mazur +16 · 41 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Acoustic Wave Resonator Technologies #Anisotropy #Condensed matter physics #Doping #Electric field #Magnetic field #Magnetic semiconductor #Magnetism #Magnetization #Materials science #Multiferroics and related materials #Nanotechnology #Nitride #Optics #Optoelectronics #Physics #Piezoelectricity #Polarization density #Semiconductor #Wurtzite crystal structure #ZnO doping and properties #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/ncomms13232
published in Nature Communications 7(1), 13232 (Nature Portfolio) · 11 pages, 10 figures, version after revision
openalex publication_date 2016/10/26 · arxiv created 2016/11/02 · arxiv updated 2016/11/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract The significant inversion symmetry breaking specific to wurtzite semiconductors, and the associated spontaneous electrical polarization, lead to outstanding features such as high density of carriers at the GaN/(Al,Ga)N interface—exploited in high-power/high-frequency electronics—and piezoelectric capabilities serving for nanodrives, sensors and energy harvesting devices. Here we show that the multifunctionality of nitride semiconductors encompasses also a magnetoelectric effect allowing to control the magnetization by an electric field. We first demonstrate that doping of GaN by Mn results in a semi-insulating material apt to sustain electric fields as high as 5 MV cm −1 . Having such a material we find experimentally that the inverse piezoelectric effect controls the magnitude of the single-ion magnetic anisotropy specific to Mn 3+ ions in GaN. The corresponding changes in the magnetization can be quantitatively described by a theory developed here.