Single-Material Magnetoelectric Coupling in Transition Metal-Doped Hafnia-Based Ferroelectric Thin Films
Magnetoelectric (ME) coupling in CMOS-compatible oxides would enable scalable, ultralow-power spintronic, neuromorphic and sensing devices. Here we report room-temperature ME coupling in transition-metal-doped Hf0.3Zr0.7O2 (HZO) thin films. Structural analyses confirm a chemically homogeneous HZO matrix in which distinct polymorphs coexist, with uniform incorporation of the transition metal ions. The resulting films exhibit concurrently ferroelectricity and magnetism at room temperature, yielding a substantial magnetoelectric coupling, as corroborated by both macroscopic electrical measurements and microscopic piezoresponse force microscopy. This coupling is highly anisotropic, showing a positive response to in-plane magnetic fields and a weak negative response to out-of-plane fields, which can be explained by an interplay between positive magnetostriction and the unique negative piezoelectric coefficient of HZO. Our work establishes transition metal-doped HZO as a promising platform for single-material magnetoelectricity and opens a pathway for integrating multifunctional ME elements into silicon-compatible technologies.
Authors
- Peizhen Hong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8301-2896)
- Shuai Ning (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2840-7270)
- Miao Meng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8453-0388)
- Houlin Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9410-4044)
- B Zhang
- Xiaolei Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6327-1527)
- Xiaowei Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7542-6108)
- Fengbo Yan
- Caroline A. Ross
- Feng Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3442-3987)
- Yue Guan
- Guo Tian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7481-0944)
- Eunsoo Cho
- Jingwen Hou
Institutions
- South China Normal University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Nankai University (CN)
- Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-bionics (CN)
- Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (IN)
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (CN)
- South China Institute of Collaborative Innovation (CN)
- Optica (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2026-05-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6c01119
- Primary Topic
- Ferroelectric and Negative Capacitance Devices
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- China Association for Science and Technology
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Nankai University
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province