Nano-“Straintronics”

Materials exhibiting several coupled ferroic orders are of high relevance for multifunctional device applications. Strain is often the coupling physical property, which can be modified and tuned by multiple ways. Our research is currently focused on low dimensional magnetoresistive structures deposited onto strain sensitive substrates, for the purpose of investigating straintronics devices. The change in strain can be controlled optically (photostriction) or electrically (converse piezoelectricity). In this way hybrid straintronic-spintronic device can be created with all electric or optical operations. We pioneered photostriction studies on multiferroic materials and recently showed that sub-coercive strains can be used to create multiple remnant devices states. This opens new perspectives for straintronics, of particular advantage in terms of low power writing and reading memory applications