Visible-light controlled interfacial magnetoelectric coupling in SrRuO3/BaTiO3 heterostructure

Artificial multiferroics provide a tunable magnetoelastic and magnetoelectric coupling owing to the variety of combinations of ferroelectric and ferromagnetic layers, hence facilitate a better perspective for device applications such as magnetic field sensors and electric write magnetic -read memory devices. The intertwined physical properties can be controlled via external parameters such as electric field, temperature, and magnetic field. Here, we report an additional mode to manoeuvre the magnetoelastic and magnetoelectric coupling in an epitaxial SrRuO ₃/BaTiO ₃ multiferroic heterostructure using polarized visible light illumination. The light-induced ferroelastic (FE) domain wall motion in underlying BaTiO ₃ leads to photostriction and photodomain effects. Consequently, the change in the converse magnetoelastic effects leads to modify the magnetic properties of the above grown SrRuO ₃ layer. Besides this, we have observed a sharp and persistent changes in the SrRuO ₃/ BaTiO ₃ heterostructure, when the system is electrically biased owing to the change in the interfacial converse magnetoelectric coupling. Light controlled magnetization tunability in BaTiO ₃-based artificial multiferroic can open an alternate way for potential applications in several types of wireless devices and magnetic field sensors, electric write magnetic-read memory devices and other interesting optomechanical systems. Our findings in this context can be proven indeed as a novel prospective for opto-spintronics device applications.