| Summary: | We report on reversible electric-field-driven magnetic domain wall motion in a Cu/Ni multilayer on a ferroelectric BaTiO3
substrate. In our heterostructure, strain-coupling to ferroelastic domains with in-plane
and perpendicular polarization in the BaTiO3 substrate causes the formation of
domains with perpendicular and in-plane magnetic anisotropy, respectively, in the Cu/Ni
multilayer.
Walls that separate magnetic domains are elastically pinned onto ferroelectric
domain walls.
Using magneto-optical Kerr
effect microscopy, we demonstrate that out-of-plane electric field pulses
across the BaTiO3 substrate move the magnetic and ferroelectric
domain walls in
unison. Our experiments indicate an exponential increase of domain wall velocity with
electric
field strength and opposite domain wall motion for positive and negative field pulses.
The application of a magnetic
field does not affect the velocity of magnetic domain walls, but
independently tailors their internal spin structure, causing a change in domain wall dynamics at high
velocities.
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