Electric-field-driven magnetic switching——for future low-power magnetoelectric information devices

Magnetic flipping driven by an electric field through magnetoelectric coupling is an important research direction in the field of multiferroic materials. It may be applied to reduce the energy consumption of spintronic devices, and could provide a new scheme to solve the problem of increasing power consumption in data processing. In the past few years, the development of pure electrical control of magnetism has experienced a tortuous course, but has also seen a series of important breakthroughs, including the fabrication of nanocomposite heterostructures, electrically controlled 180° magnetic flipping driven by strain coupling, low-voltage driven 180° magnetic flipping through interface magnetic exchange coupling, and electric field manipulated magnetic topology such as skyrmions, which have laid the foundation for further development of ultra-low energy consumption magnetoelectric storage or logic devices. This paper focuses on the pure electric field regulation of magnetic flipping for magnetoelectric information devices, and briefly reviews the progress in the past decade, current problems in this field, and future research directions.