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Updated: Feb 10, 2026

High-Contrast and Fast Photorheological Switching of a Twist-Bend Nematic Liquid Crystal
Published on: October 31, 2019
Ionic Liquid Gating Control of Spin Reorientation Transition and Switching of Perpendicular Magnetic Anisotropy
Shishun Zhao1, Lei Wang2, Ziyao Zhou1
1Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education and International Center for Dielectric Research, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China.
Abstract:
Electric field (E-field) modulation of perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) switching, in an energy-efficient manner, is of great potential to realize magnetoelectric (ME) memories and other ME devices. Voltage control of the spin-reorientation transition (SRT) that allows the magnetic moment rotating between the out-of-plane and the in-plane direction is thereby crucial. In this work, a remarkable magnetic anisotropy field change up to 1572 Oe is achieved under a small operation voltage of 4 V through ionic liquid (IL) gating control of SRT in Au/[DEME]+ [TFSI]- /Pt/(Co/Pt)2 /Ta capacitor heterostructures at room temperature, corresponding to a large ME coefficient of 378 Oe V-1 . As revealed by both ferromagnetic resonance measurements and magnetic domain evolution observation, the magnetization can be switched stably and reversibly between the out-of-plane and in-plane directions via IL gating. The key mechanism, revealed by the first-principles calculation, is that the IL gating process influences the interfacial spin-orbital coupling as well as net Rashba magnetic field between the Co and Pt layers, resulting in the modulation of the SRT and in-plane/out-of-plane magnetization switching. This work demonstrates a unique IL-gated PMA with large ME tunability and paves a way toward IL gating spintronic/electronic devices such as voltage tunable PMA memories.
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